


Il n'est pas nécessaire de le dire aux enfants

by nisakomi



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Relationship(s), Set During Wonwoo's Absence, Sexual Content, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-15 23:34:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10559584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisakomi/pseuds/nisakomi
Summary: He swallows.He swallows—well, his saliva for one. The words that shouldn’t make it past his lips for another. But it isn’t until Kwon Soonyoung that Wonwoo begins to understand swallowing his fear might be the toughest pill of all.K-Pop Olymfics 2017





	

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [kpopolymfics2017](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2017) collection. 



> This fic was written for K-Pop Olymfics 2017. Olymfics is a challenge in which participants write fics based on prompt sets and compete against other teams of writers, organized by genre.
> 
> This is Team Canon’s fic for the following prompt set:  
>  **Roy Kim – "The Great Dipper"**  
> [lyrics](http://roykimtrans.blogspot.tw/2015/12/2-buk-du-chil-sung-great-dipper.html) | [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iSuSghFi6c) | [supplementary](https://www.flickr.com/photos/simonparec/17357091383) [prompts](http://i.imgur.com/K9NQHC4.png)
> 
> The other 2 fics for this prompt can be found in [the collection](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2017). ~~Competition winners are chosen by the readers, so please rate this fic using[this survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSehlvY3xp7ybkhqgpZIzbnI_8JdyimJYhdQu7WYjBt255WZJw/viewform?usp=sf_link)!~~ ((please stop voting, olymfics ended weeks ago orz)) 
> 
> Warnings: Non-linear narrative / An only somewhat reliable narrator / Internalized homophobia / This story is a fictional work set during the summer of 2016, including the time when Wonwoo was away due to illness. It is not intended to suggest that events occurred as described, nor intended to sensationalize his ordeal for fan consumption. Ignoring his very real discomfort, however, would be disingenuous. Please do not proceed if this context makes you uncomfortable. 
> 
> Author’s Note: Title taken from Marcel Pagnol’s Le Château de ma mère / Thanks to the GrrLs™ for holding my hand and tolerating my abundant whining, to dearest team bathtub for being so positive and supportive of each other despite everyone’s hectic day jobs, and finally much love to our cutest mod for her generosity, patience, and most precious puns ♥  
>   
> 
> 
> *
> 
>   
> 

 

 

Wonwoo spreads his icy fingers, moving them jerkily over the void where he imagines the bedside table to be. The side of a thick knuckle glances off something smooth and firm. He makes a grab for it, reaching as quickly as his reflexes will allow in that adumbral realm between sleep and wakefulness.

He knocks the bottle over.

The suffocating darkness amplifies the sound of the pills falling against plastic; they jingle like beads in a rainmaker, a steady downpour extending for what seems like a gravity-defying amount of time before the bottle hits the ground. The clattering noise, already loud enough, is followed by the sound of his fingers dropping to the wooden surface, the knock of skin-covered bone against wood echoing in the otherwise silent night.

“Fuck,” Wonwoo mutters. “Fuck.”

Someone to his left grunts in his sleep and Wonwoo grunts back, lip curled and nose wrinkled, one arm wrapped around his belly. With his free hand, he yanks at a fistful of mattress and sheets to leverage himself sideways. The hand untangles from the bedding, reaches over the side of the bed, and feels around the floor until his fingers finally touch and grasp the pill bottle. He pulls it back up with a wince, clutching tighter around his waist.

Still using only one hand, he unscrews the bottle, fishes out a painkiller between the nail of his index and fleshy part of his third finger, then slips the tiny round thing between his lips. It settles under his tongue as he puts everything back to sorts. He reaches for the glass of water.

At least he hadn’t knocked over the water.

 

  

*

 

 

“Fuck. Fucking shit.”

This time, Wonwoo’s swearing rouses Soonyoung, who grumbles and mutters something Wonwoo ignores.

This time, he doesn’t knock over the pills or the water.

It could be two hours later, it could be four. He had read the label on the bottle while sitting on the toilet sometime after dinner, the dosage recommendations clearly indicating not to exceed a certain quantity in a certain amount of time, but those are all numbers Wonwoo can’t remember, doesn’t remember, can’t care about, doesn’t care about when he tosses another ibuprofen down his throat.

“Damn, that _hurts_ ,” he says to himself.

For a moment, the blackness coating the walls of the room disappears in a flash of white. Wonwoo doubles over, curled up into a ball on the bed, the sheets sticky not because of the summer heat but the cold sweat dripping off his body. He can’t see. Not enough light is filtering through the window and his eyelids are heavy even though his heart hammers right up against his ribcage. But even if the room were bright, even if his eyes were wide open, it wouldn’t matter. His mind is frozen, and he can’t process anything. He doesn’t even know that it hurts, not anymore, he just feels it burning and burning and—

“—Wonwoo-goon? Jeon Wonwoo! Please don’t tell me you’re crying into your pillow or something, not when you said you were over Youngri. Plus, you were all smiley the past few days.”

Wonwoo has a retort. Oh, does he have something to say to Kwon Soonyoung. But the words in his head disappear long before they can be voiced, and he can’t reply with much more than an undignified, “Ah, fuck.”

“Hey, Jeon, are you okay?” The tired whine in Soonyoung’s voice switches to something…else…

There’s a word for that tone, but Wonwoo can’t wrap his tongue around it right now.

A hand presses at his forehead, and then that familiar rainmaker sound of pills slapping up against their plastic container rattles Wonwoo to the core. He shivers, which sends another jolt of pain through his belly, and he squeezes so tightly on himself he might explode.

He’s going to explode. If Soonyoung asks him one more time if he’s okay, Wonwoo’s insides will burst from their fleshy vessel and splatter blood and guts everywhere, in a bright flash of light more powerful than a hundred million stars.

But Wonwoo’s not a supernova, he doesn’t explode.

He fades.

 

  

*

 

 

When Wonwoo had come out of the exam center for his level three hanja certification, his mother was waiting with a shiny red purse in one hand, and a banana flavoured milk in the other. She let him stab a straw into the foil covering of the polystyrene bottle, shaped like a miniature traditional Korean jar, before taking his ten-year-old hand into her own and leading him off the school grounds to head home.

He might have been too old for handholding, maybe even too old for banana milk, but as he sipped at the liquid with his mouth pinched daintily, the warmth of her hand comforted him.

Her words were warm like her hand and sweet like his drink, when she told him him, “I’m so proud of you. You’ve worked so hard. It’s quite an achievement, and I’m sure your friends will be impressed.”

He smiled at her, looking up into the shiny film of pride over her eyes. She wore her sincerity in the gentle lines of her face with her cheeks and the corners of her mouth soft. She looked too pretty for him to tell her that she was wrong.

Unlike his classmates’ parents who enrolled their kids in piano lessons, taekwondo, or extra math tutoring and drove them to cram school without a hint of discussion, Wonwoo’s parents let him pick what he wanted to do outside of his time in school. So, he pursued a smattering of hapkido and thought about having his friend teach him guitar, this and that.

But mostly he read. He read, happened to read about the certification exams, and asked his parents if he could take them. They paid for the fees, and his mother bought him a set of textbooks, although they otherwise left him alone to study for it independently.

Truth be told, he hadn’t worked very hard at all. Sure, he read through the available materials, but he could trace the directions of the radicals and axioms before he’d looked at a single page. Didn’t need to, even if some of the words weren’t taught until middle school and he was still in fourth grade.

Two nights before the exam, when his mother knocked on his bedroom door to ask if he was prepared, he assured her confidently before returning to his third reading of the _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_. His father’s hanja dictionary from university lay by his side, its yellowy-grey pages barely held together by the cracked spine, thicker than the width of his palm. The first time Wonwoo attempted the book, he flipped through the dictionary ceaselessly, looking up all manner of strange words he’d never seen before. Now, it remained mostly untouched while he read, the formal characters flowing unhindered until the odd uncommon term made him hesitate. Even then, he only checked if he couldn’t guess its meaning by context.

During the test, Wonwoo’s fingers never itched for a dictionary. His pencil scratched without stop on the thick white paper, and after he completed the booklet he still had time to triple-check his work, knees dangling over the too large chair inside the high school classroom where the exam was administered. He’d receive the certification with his name on it a few weeks in the mail, they’d said, if he passed. Which he did. He didn’t need to wait for someone to verify his answers to know that.

Wonwoo read voraciously. He devoured books and learned their contents in meticulous detail, paying no heed to plot or prose if the story carried him far away. The genre, too, meant little in the face of emotional weight and alternate worlds. Words transported him elsewhere, transformed him into a knight, a magician, or simply a boy playing in the forest. They whisked him away from the banal familiarity of Changwon’s streets. On days when he was tired and his imagination mellow, when his emotions stagnated instead of flowing with the protagonist’s, he read those days too, caught up in non-realities. There wasn’t some profound point. There were just books. Reading them was as necessary and simple as breathing.

One of the aunties once asked if he got lonely, sitting with paper instead of people, but Wonwoo read precisely so he could be left alone.

His father understood that, he thought, knocking on the door to the study after he had toed off his shoes.

“Come in,” his father said in his deep booming voice. “How did you do?” Straight to the point to conserve every tick of the clock.

“Well,” Wonwoo replied, straightening to meet his father’s eyes, who treated him like a grown-up when everyone else insisted on reminding him that he was a child. The bigger he made himself stand, the more it felt like he deserved that respect.

“What was the hardest question?”

Wonwoo took a moment to consider, as it wouldn’t be sufficient to breezily suggest the entire test was all simple. Of course, the questions couldn’t have been of uniform difficulty, and his father wasn’t someone who asked questions just for the sake of asking them. He liked that. Liked that it was phrased in a question instead of the certain barrage of, ‘that must have been hard for someone your age’s that would inevitably crop up from his mother’s friends. And, Wonwoo thought, it seemed a cleverer way to ascertain just how challenging a test was.

“The _sajaseong-eo_ ,” Wonwoo finally decided, “we had to write the hanja for some four word idioms. One of them was _‘Gyeong-cheon-dong-ji’_.”

“Hm. Do you remember what that one means?”

“To astound,” Wonwoo said, letting confidence seep into his tone. “To surprise the whole world. It’s pretty easy to write as long as you remember the character for shock is ‘careless’ and ‘help’ over ‘horse’.”

His father looked at him overtop fingers pointed in a church steeple, his wisdom pressed into wrinkled lines, life experiences dusting his face as small brown lentigines. In his father’s eyes, Wonwoo saw the depths of galaxies and infinite space. The entire history of the universe.

On that day, a new entry would be written: the first flicker of desire in Jeon Wonwoo’s eyes to take the universe by storm.

 

 

 

*

 

 

Only a sliver of light sneaks past the edges of the window frame around the drawn shades, making it difficult to discern the time of day. White medical tape strapped around Wonwoo’s left wrist holds a needle in place, a needle connected to a thin plastic tube and funnelling clear fluid from a bag holstered over a metal stand at a slow but consistent drip. He blinks, with each time that his eyelashes separate dislodging a little more of the crust gluing his eyelids shut. To his right, on the opposite side of the bed from the IV, Jongpil-hyung sits with his head down and eyes glued to the screen of his phone.

“Are you our manager or our mom?” Wonwoo asks. Or, he tries to, voice breaking over the syllables. He hadn’t noticed the dryness of his lips until he tried to speak, the way the cracks stretch pinching with the movement of his mouth.

He’s in the hospital, obviously, doesn’t need to ask the classic wake-up ‘where am I?’ in all the melodramas on TV, and he doesn’t need to ask why either. The deep-seated burn in the core of his gut has been treated, and he’s no longer shaking or sweating from the ache that consumed him, but tinges of pain loom on the surface, just under the skin around his bellybutton, peripheral concerns one might consider with a faint hint of suspicion.

“I wouldn’t have to act like a mom if you brats would stay out of trouble,” Jongpil-hyung says after looking up, folding an arm so his fist is on one hip.

“It’s not like I tried to rip my own stomach out,” Wonwoo whines, taking advantage of their age difference to pout for some sympathy. Although, it’s also not like he tried to take care of it very well either.

Jongpil rolls his eyes. “I’ll go get the CEO and let the doctor know you’re awake.”

“The CEO?” The only way things could be worse is if they’d brought his parents.

Jongpil-hyung grins. “Feel special, do you?”

He disappears and then a few minutes later a young nurse shows up holding a clipboard which she sets aside to prod at the buttons next to Wonwoo’s bed so he’s somewhat more upright. When she bends down to adjust Wonwoo’s pillows, hair that’s escaped from her elastic falls into her face and she brushes it all back rather brusquely. The action reminds Wonwoo of Youngri, who was always so impatient with those small things, clucking her tongue if her zipper ever got caught or rolling her eyes and muttering at tangled earphones.

“Are you comfortable, patient Jeon?” The nurse asks, straightening with her clipboard in her hands once more. She wears a turquoise medical mask over the lower half of her face and speaks without any movement in the area around her eyes. It’s like she’s communicating telepathically with him, giving no signs on her face that she’s said a word.

“Yes.”

“In that case, I will let the doctor know that you’re awake. He’ll be with you shortly,” she lies. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call.” Her hands indicate toward one of the buttons so quickly Wonwoo doesn’t catch which one it is, and then she’s gone too.

  

 

*

 

 

By the time the CEO, Jongpil-hyung, a different nurse, and the doctor finally arrive, Wonwoo’s read everything in large enough lettering on the back of the IV bag, the yellow warning sticker affixed to the railing of his bed, the medical information label stuck around a band on his wrist, and every single button on the electronic control panel. He’s bored, restless, and still a bit uncomfortable in the stomach area. A pinch that won’t go away.

“You have acute gastritis,” the doctor calls it. “But luckily it doesn’t seem to be caused by a serious infection.”

Those words mean nothing to Wonwoo.

“We’ll set you on a course of antacids, but antibiotics won’t be necessary. Do you have any questions?”

Wonwoo shakes his swimming head and looks to the CEO and Jongpil-hyung. “Am I still going to perform at Dream Con?”

“Oh no,” says the doctor, “we’ll be keeping you in the hospital for a few days to monitor your condition. Your body is in an extremely fragile right now, and quite undernourished.”

“But…the performance?”

“As soon as you were rushed to hospital, the others began working on new audio and choreography. They can handle it.”

Wonwoo bet Jihoon and Soonyoung just loved that. The others too. They had been preparing a DJ Doc cover, and even if they all knew the dance moves, having to change to new formations and transitions this close to the performance was going to be a rehearsal nightmare, and all because Wonwoo’s stomach couldn’t handle a few irregular eating habits.

“I can’t just disappear, especially since I’m awake and fine now. I’m one painkiller away from standing up and it’s too much work for them to have to change everything because of me.”

“They’ve already started, and these are doctor’s orders. You must recover fully now so you can be on stage with them longer, later.”

“And no more painkillers. The NSAIDs and the stress have already wrought havoc on your stomach lining, it’s a miracle you don’t suffer from regular ulcers. No painkillers, and nothing acidic. No coffee, juice, or carbonated drinks. Ginger tea is okay, but avoid other types of tea because those are acidic as well. Food you eat shouldn't be cold or hot, and absolutely nothing spicy. Limit the dairy and gluten, at least for the next little while.” The doctor says all of this without pause, so Wonwoo remembers no painkillers, no coffee, and nothing after that. “Oh, and your vitamin B12 levels are very low so eat some mackerel, without gochujang of course. I’ll have the nurse write up a list for your manager.”

There’s a flurry of notes exchanged and some bowed heads and Han CEO is staring at him with a fatherly smile that makes Wonwoo look away with a shiver. He fucking hates fish.

“Well, I think that’s all,” says the doctor. “Don’t worry, and get some rest. Relaxing will be good for you and help you recover faster.”

Of course. Nothing to be concerned about then. If a doctor tells him everything’s fine, his body is obviously going to be instantly carefree.

They leave, and the nurse that reminded Wonwoo of Youngri returns to readjust his bed with a bland smile. 

 

 

*

 

 

Despite whatever social conventions existed, Youngri had been the one to bravely ask Wonwoo out.

Nam Youngri had been in a different class in middle school, but they heard stories of each other from being in similar friend groups. Then he’d joined Pledis, gone to SOPA for high school, and didn’t know she was in the same city until Facebook helpfully suggested her as someone he might know. They added each other, he asked her what she was doing now, she said several of her friends at university in Seoul knew of him and Seventeen.

He showed up to one of those middle school reunions for people in the same city on her invitation, walking awkwardly through the door in an oversized coat and a black facemask that he didn’t dare pull down, and sat closed in on himself with his fingers between his thighs, one knee crossed over the other, while the four or five others reminisced about stuff from childhood, and eventually, high school in Changwon. Most of those stories flew over his head, but they were better than the disbelieving chortles about his career in the entertainment industry.

After about an hour or two of that, Youngri had pushed her chair back, smiled, and informed the others, “This has been fun, but Wonwoo and I have to meet someone else now.”

They said their goodbyes, Wonwoo’s fists shoved in his pockets the entire time, and as soon as the door to the café closed behind them, Wonwoo asked, “Who are we meeting?”

“Oh, no one. I just thought you looked like you wanted out of there.”

She laughed, pulling away from him toward the road slightly, one hand up to hide her red-tinted mouth. When she laughed, her eyes disappeared a little, and the skin around them folded up charmingly. Normally she was pretty, in a way Soonyoung had described after meeting her as ‘perfectly sculpted, with great legs’ while making grossly exaggerated hand actions in the vague area of his hips. But when she laughed, the prettiness turned into cute.

She also moved around a lot when she laughed, and Wonwoo’s mind's eye saw her losing her balance before it happened. He grabbed her by the elbow to steady her on her feet, staring into her face as her mouth formed a small ‘o’. _Endeared_. That’s how he felt. It must have shown on his face because her response wasn’t to thank him, but to ask, breathlessly, “Would you like to go on a date, Wonwoo-goon?”

 

  

*

 

 

There’s a lesson: you should never let only one of your bandmates meet your girlfriend. That and he’d forgotten Soonyoung was a blabbermouth, or unwisely trusted him to keep this one thing, the only important thing really, a secret. The wisecracks Wonwoo faced afterward from the other members, jokes about playing favourites when all of them wanted to meet their sister-in-law-to-be, they lasted weeks without end, continuing to crop up each time he thought the whole thing had finally blown over.

  

 

*

 

 

The company takes the responsible course of action, probably, by telling his parents that he’s hospitalized. Wonwoo can’t appreciate it as such.

“You being out here on your own, we’re always so worried about you. You really scared us with this. Do you know what it’s like getting a call at four in the morning that your son’s in hospital? I really thought the worst.”

He’s old enough to interpret his mother’s fears and self-relating concerns as love, but her presence in the room is suffocating in and of itself. Fighting the guilt she teases out of him by demonstrating so much _emotion_ and _vulnerability_ sucks the life force out of him, along with the air.

“The last time I called, you said you were doing well!” She’s wrapped around him so he hears the wail right up against his ear.

He was doing well enough, relatively speaking. Is there anyone in the world who feels truly well? Even if there is someone like that, maintaining that level of health and happiness is just unrealistic. You can’t avoid weariness, not when it settles into your bones with the hardening of your growth plates, the states of adulthood and fatigue arriving hand-in-hand.

His father simply brings him books without asking. He hands them over in a thick plastic bag, the kind that doesn’t stretch even when bearing a heavy load, while Wonwoo’s mother fixes her tear-smudged make-up staring into a tiny hand mirror. Wonwoo thinks his father's is a better way of expressing your love. Not considering what’s good for yourself, but what’s good for the other person. But then, Youngri had broken up with him a month ago so he’s not exactly a love guru.

After his parents leave, he stays up late trying to finish the first novel he starts on, which is fine considering he doesn’t have anything to do the next day, except that he gets woken up for breakfast. The IV gets taken out, and he takes his time spooning down bland rice porridge and a few side dishes, all at lukewarm temperatures. But being awake during the day means he’s dead tired after dinner, and he sleeps through the concert even though he had meant to stay awake to cheer the others on live.

The lights are off in the room and in the hallway when he wakes up, a pale glow coming from the moonlight outside. Wonwoo rolls over to pick up his phone and check the time. The screen brightly displays 3:27am, and a series of KakaoTalk notifications too long to scroll through.

He opens that up first, loading the list of conversations to see several red bubbles. The Seventeen group chat is at the top, and Wonwoo’s thumb hovers above the tab for several moments before he ultimately drops it back down to the side of his phone. If he opens it now and the others see that he’s read the messages…what would he say to them? ‘Don’t worry about me?’ That seems a little like he was expecting them to be worried. ‘Sorry for giving you more work?’ They’d tell him it wasn’t a problem even though they surely stayed up well into morning to work on the choreography. It all comes off as too disingenuous, and he figures he’ll leave it until they see each other in person again.

Wonwoo taps on the second conversation down decisively, not processing that it’s Soonyoung until he’s opened the chat up to a series of increasingly ridiculous text emojis. At the top of the screen, ‘ _Jeonghan-hyung cried for two hours when he found out kekekeke_ ’. Wonwoo snorts with disbelief.

‘ _Yeah, maybe with sadness at having to relearn all the dance parts_ ,’ Wonwoo types back quickly. It was nice that he cared, but at the same time, crying for two hours? At least a little overdramatic. It wasn’t like Wonwoo had died or anything.

He scrolls up to see whatever else Soonyoung’s sent him in the interim time at the hospital, assured by the presence of stupid comics as expected. One of the photos he’s sent, however, is a picture of Soonyoung, taken by a fan, wearing his cheesy navy blue stage outfit, covered with white anchor print. The collar of it is weird, dipping into a ‘V’ just above the space between his collarbones, showing off slender neck muscles. Soonyoung’s smiling in the photo, eyes curved into crescent moons and lips an aggressively bright shade of red, a similar shade to Youngri’s favourite lipstick, spread to reveal his square teeth. In his hands Wonwoo sees his own face printed onto the cover of the book.

He holds down his finger and hits the trash can icon without a second thought.

‘ _Stop sending me photos of yourself_ ,’ Wonwoo sends, ‘ _you’re turning into Junhui with all this narcissism_.’

He receives a message back, not long after, something sentimental and unnecessary about wanting to show Wonwoo he’s still on stage with them in spirit if not in body, but he calmly ignores the gentle vibration of his phone in favour of closing his eyes.

 

  

*

 

 

There’s another reason you should never let only one of your bandmates meet your girlfriend. They all demand to see a picture of her, and while they crowd around your phone, all twelve of them craning their necks to get a look at the small screen, some dumbass like Kim Mingyu yells out, “Hey, don’t you think she kind of looks like Soonyoung-hyung?”

 

 

*

 

 

“You really think I look like that?” Wonwoo asks, one eyebrow raised. He shifts his weight back onto his left leg and uncrosses one arm to point loosely toward the yellow fox doll Mingyu is making do weird circular dances, his fingers huge around the small stuffed toy. This is the first conversation he has after returning to the dorms. A confrontation with Kim Mingyu and the weird doll Seventeen have adopted in place of him.

Mingyu doesn’t pause in his mid-air square dance with the stupid thing. “Of course. It’s the glasses, mostly, but haven’t you always been the one who looked like a fox? You were the one who said that about yourself back when we were still trainees.”

“But it’s so…yellow. And at least half, okay maybe a third of its body is just…ears.”

“Don’t worry,” Mingyu says lightly, “your ears are very cute too, Wonwoo-hyung.”

Wonwoo doesn’t reply to that, shoving Mingyu aside not-so-lightly, and makes his way to his usual bed without looking back at the cry of pain emitted behind him. Mingyu’s just stupid and blind, that’s nothing new, he really shouldn’t feel so bothered by whatever shenanigans they came up with. Not when it’s just meant to be cute and a tribute to him meant positively. But they freaking _put that fox thing in his chair_. What next, would he have to give up his ring to hang it on a chain and loop the whole thing over the neck of a doll?

“I’m home~!” Soonyoung announces, banging open the door to their room before striking a pose. “Well, I suppose _you_ ’re home. Missed me?”

Wonwoo half blinks, half squints in the direction of the doorway. The words process slowly in his brain so that he has to consciously come to a decision about how to feel, but before he’s settled one way or another, Soonyoung’s closed the door behind him flitted over to Wonwoo’s side, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Guess you’re tired, huh?” he says, quieter.

“No,” Wonwoo says. He’s been lying in a bed for four days, doing nothing but resting. He rehearses an explanation for his frustration head and then frowns, discarding it quickly. He doesn’t want Soonyoung to know how childish that line of emotion was.

“You don’t have to pretend you’re not in pain, you know. The point is that the burden is shared among thirteen people, not for one person to decommission themselves. Even between two people is better.”

Wonwoo tilts his head up. His stomach doesn’t twinge, doesn’t even roll in acknowledgement. He feels fine.

Soonyoung interprets the silence as assent and places the palm of his hand over Wonwoo’s abdomen, like he’s an expectant mother and Soonyoung expects the baby to kick. “I’m Jeon Wonwoo,” Soonyoung mimics in an exaggeratedly low voice, “I’ve got to be a martyr.”

He turns his head away feeling the heat of Soonyoung’s palm radiating over his skin, through the thin fabric of his shirt. “Where are you picking up all these interesting words from?”

“I’m Jeon Wonwoo,” Soonyoung teases again, “I think I’m the only person in the room who’s smart or knows how to read.”

Wonwoo whips his head back to give Soonyoung a scornful look, lips parted and eyes narrowed, ready to say something scalding.

“Eh, relax. I’m your best friend, silly. I know how you work,” Soonyoung says, lifting his hand up from Wonwoo’s stomach to flick his fingers over Wonwoo’s face. Soonyoung’s hand is still hot, and the sweeping brush of fingers against his cheeks feel like being licked by the warm rays of the sun.

 

  

*

 

 

He’s thought about that for a long time. Wonwoo usually liked thinking, even just thinking about thinking. Reflecting on how things were going, how they’ve went, how he might like them to go in the future. His own emotions, the reactions of the people around him, human interaction. Those kinds of things made up the crux of a good story, more so than flowery writing or dramatic storylines. It was the people, and how much they resonated with reality, that dictated whether something would stay with him for a long time.

But the ‘that’ in this situation referred to the concept of a best friend.

Soonyoung was the easiest person to call his best friend.

Easy wasn’t the right word. Most suited. But it was tricky, and depended on how you defined a best friend. Was a best friend someone you laughed with? Who you spent a lot of time with? The friend who was the best to you? In that case, no contest, Kwon Soonyoung by the distance between the dorm and the office and then all the way back again. But if a best friend was someone where both of you make each other better, well. Were they closest? Were they the most trusting of each other? Even if Soonyoung was the kindest to him…was he the kindest back? What kind of best friend can’t even think up a last-minute birthday present? After the events from the first week of May (a bit of an all-encompassing term that made it generally easier to talk about the time Wonwoo’s younger self nearly fucked up so badly he’d jeopardized the entire band’s careers), he shredded his fingernails thinking about the issue.

He remembered sitting with hunched shoulders for the entirety of the _Dear Carat_ performance, curled in on and feeling sorry for himself about all the things that had to line up for things to go so terribly wrong, wondering why the fates were spiting him in this way, why they hated him, why things couldn’t go well. The ruminating kept his eyes unfocused, gaze regretful, and the air around him tight and still.

The shadow cast by his body on the floor of the stage behind him was tinier even than Jihoon’s, who sat upright. Wonwoo hadn’t shrunk, but he still felt tiny.

“My mom,” Soonyoung had begun, choking up as he recounted the story of her hospitalization and being left in the dark.

Wonwoo had leaned over, hands shaking until they found his plastic bottle with the label removed, and unscrewed the cap as quietly as he could while the camera zoomed in on Soonyoung’s tear stained face. It panned out afterward, and Wonwoo had taken a long drink of water. Soonyoung didn’t need Wonwoo. There were other members to tell Soonyoung not to cry, that his mother’s heart would hurt if she saw him like that, and so forth. He was fine. _He_ was fine.

The water had sat at the back of his mouth for an uncomfortable amount of time, during which his cheeks were puffed out miserably. Wonwoo could barely swallow around the lump in his throat, a tight ball of indignation from the fact that Soonyoung had never spoken to him about it, wound around something tasting like bitter sadness from knowing how Soonyoung was about keeping things pent up. Wonwoo knew Soonyoung’s mother. Her face was round and sweet and she worried about everyone, all traits she’d passed down to her son.

He swallowed at last and said nothing. Some things left unsaid were better off remaining unstated.

 

 

*

 

 

Jongpil-hyung, deemed the most familiar with the hospital, goes with Wonwoo to receive his checkup. They run a battery of physical examinations on him, and then follow those up with more bloodwork. Wonwoo pales a little when they consider shoving a painful-looking plastic tube down his esophagus, but that’s finally ruled unnecessary when he says he doesn’t feel any pain left over (although there’s much hemming and hawing).

“You’ve lost quite a bit of weight since we last saw you, which was not that long ago, and your blood sugar levels are staggeringly low. Obviously, the diet we put you on is treating one aspect of your health, but depleting your physical stamina. We’re concerned that in your line of work…”

Wonwoo tunes out the rest, nodding at appropriate intervals. He’s got the okay about the gastritis, and that’s all that matters. That means he can get back to the studio, and it’s going to be tough as is, considering how much time he’s missed, sitting out doing nothing.

In the car, Jongpil-hyung tells him something about filming the non-dance parts of the music video, which is just fine by Wonwoo, and gives him some talk about continuing to follow the list of dietary restrictions on his treatment plan, but eating more in quantity. Wonwoo listens without processing the lecture, busy trying to beat Jeonghan’s new high score in the fantasy run game on his phone instead of paying attention.

By the time they pull up to the filming location, Jongpil-hyung’s on his phone too, and Wonwoo’s lost track of time having his character fall off the same ledge three times in a row. He shoves his phone into his black messenger bag, swings the strap over his shoulder, and hops out of the van in two giant strides.

The warehouse is filled with people; stylists fixing make-up, hair, and outfits, lighting and technical crew, cameras, and the like, but it’s oddly quieter than he expected. There’s no acknowledgement of Wonwoo’s arrival either, most people don’t even notice that he’s come through the door, and those who do kind of make eye-contact before being manhandled back into position so they can get their foundation patted down.

Soonyoung tears himself away from where he’s getting his shirt buttoned up to stick his phone in Wonwoo’s face. “Look alive, Wonwoo-goon.”

“What are you up to now?” Wonwoo asks, leaning forward slightly.

Soonyoung pauses his constant flittering long enough to do something on his phone screen, and then he’s moving around again, showing Wonwoo the picture he saved. “Just playing with Snow filters,” Soonyoung says.

“I see.” Wonwoo peers at the ears, whiskers, and pointy teeth that ornament the photograph of himself with some curiosity. He plucks the phone out of Soonyoung’s grasp and quickly thumbs through an endless array of rainbows, hearts, and stars. “Look, this one makes your face all sparkly. Makes things easier than that time they painted your face in that hideous body glitter for the debut video, doesn’t it?”

“Shut up.” Soonyoung takes the phone back, squinting at the image of him reflected from the front-facing camera. “I looked cool. Like a star, ‘Hoshi’, you know? It was awesome.”

“You looked like you came out of _Avatar_. You were a blue alien. I don’t see what’s so cool about that.”

Soonyoung’s face gets all scrunchy, and he flares out his nose like an angry manhwa character before he bursts out laughing. “I wonder where that video even went,” he says through his snickers, “I guess it’s a good thing that we didn’t debut with that concept then.”

“Hm, yeah,” Wonwoo replies absent-mindedly, his gaze stuck in the creases around Soonyoung’s laughing eyes. “Dark Seventeen.”

“Is fun sometimes,” Soonyoung affirms, “but the cutesy side is kinda more us sometimes, too.” He knocks his shoulder into Wonwoo’s and shoves him toward where someone is beckoning to change Wonwoo into whatever he’s supposed to wear for this video, which is definitely not the plain white t-shirt he’s currently donning.

They have a lot more fun with their current concept, performing the energetic choreography Soonyoung comes up with to the upbeat pop songs Jihoon produces. Wonwoo has fun, anyway, finally getting to _do_ stuff after ages of sitting around, being cooped up indoors, always resting.

Since he doesn’t participate in the dance parts, they give him extra filler scenes, Wonwoo thinks. The others stick to one or two locations and backdrops, but Wonwoo tosses a basketball around with Seungcheol in one scene, flips through a magazine in another, and then spends the rest of the time sitting on a horrific striped sofa while Soonyoung rides around in circles on a yellow bicycle.

They tell him to look at the girl like he’s interested. It’s not a particularly difficult task when you know what kind of feeling that is, but Wonwoo’s surprised he can muster up that kind of emotion when these days all his memories of Youngri are depressingly fresh. But, it’s just, Soonyoung careens into a concrete pillar after losing control of the bike, thinking he could hang onto the handlebars with only one hand, and the mess he creates, leaping off the pedals so he doesn’t give himself a concussion from crashing headfirst, leaves Wonwoo almost in tears from laughing so hard. Soonyoung can’t even tell him to shut up because he’s laughing just as hard, while the actress is looking between the two of them with a half-smile like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to laugh at the near-disaster with the two crazies.

Wonwoo navigates the rest of the filming with a huge grin plastered to his face, sufficiently unwound from witnessing the bike fiasco. It’s an expression of genuine joy at working, being where he is, surrounded with people he knows like family. Hours and hours later, when it comes to the end of the day, the last segment where they film their run, Wonwoo imagines it’s his dreams at the other wall and madly gives chase.

 

 

*

 

 

“You two match well with each other,” Soonyoung said, an arm slung around Wonwoo’s neck. He looked straight ahead while he spoke, paying careful attention to the road in front of them.

“Yeah?” Wonwoo turned to look at him. Their heads were close enough that Soonyoung could probably feel Wonwoo’s breath on his cheek. Wonwoo smiled a little, a tiny upward lift in the corners of his lips, but his eyes softened a great deal.

“Yeah. You look at each other like I—like I think my parents do, although it’s been a while since I’ve seen them.”

Wonwoo turned back to the sidewalk, where they were nearing the dorm. “Huh. What’s that like?”

“You know.” Soonyoung shrugged, and Wonwoo felt the rise and fall of his shoulder pressed up against him. “In love, or something.”

“In love?” Wonwoo scoffed. “I don’t know about that, but I like her a lot. She’s perceptive, understanding, nice to me… She can tease too but it’s…” He broke off to smile. “You’re right. I think we’re on the same page so we match well, and she’s not the type to get bothered if we can’t spend too much time together and stuff.”

Soonyoung extracted his arm from around Wonwoo and said very carefully, “Doesn’t that worry you?”

Wonwoo didn’t respond. He stared at Soonyoung, who was licking puffy lips with his eyes narrowed. Wonwoo’s eyes remained passive, blinking calmly while Soonyoung chose his next words slowly, making them sound particularly deliberate.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing you or her, but I don’t think I could be satisfied with something so passive. It’s nice that she’s tolerant, but I think I would want the person I was dating to be more passionate. To have some fire, you know, really want me. That kind of thing.” He waited until he was finished speaking to look at Wonwoo, eyes flicking sideways to check for a reaction, probably, but landing on Wonwoo’s mouth before Soonyoung tugged his gaze back up.

“Maybe. But she just _gets_ it. I think I’m pretty lucky to have a girlfriend like Youngri.”

They reached the doorway back to their dormitory, and Soonyoung stayed quiet all the way up the stairs. Wonwoo was fine without talking as well, and entered the number code with the memory of a closed-eyed smile in the back of his mind.

“Wait,” Soonyoung said, grabbing Wonwoo’s elbow in the foyer.

Wonwoo stopped just before tripping over someone’s misplaced work boots, and looked back at Soonyoung with eyes stretched wide open, questioning. He could see the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow on Soonyoung’s chin because of their proximity, standing within the close confines of the entryway.

“Can I ask you something?” Soonyoung’s throat bobbed with a swallow.

“Of course.”

“What’s it like, I mean, like, when you kiss her?”

Wonwoo grinned and cuffed the back of Soonyoung’s neck to pull his head down. “Wow, you want a girlfriend bad, don’t you?”

Soonyoung yelped down into the floor and pushed Wonwoo away with his lips hanging in an exaggerated frown. “Who said anything about a girlfriend? I just asked a very simple question, okay!”

“Hmm…well, to answer it, I would say…soft. And warm? It’s very nice. But I’m warning you, if you want some you better go find your own.”

  

 

*

 

 

“It sounds good,” Wonwoo says, taking off his headphones.

Jihoon twirls around while humming in his chair, neck tilted back and hands behind his head. He pulls a face and does a little nod. “Right? Beomju-hyung did a sick job with the old-timey gramophone record feel. It fits the song.”

Wonwoo nods. “Were the snaps recordings of you?”

“Do you know someone else who can snap as well as I can?” Jihoon asks, pausing in his desk chair and raising an eyebrow.

“I—”

“I’m just kidding. We have special effects for that kind of thing now anyway, but yeah those were my snaps. Honestly, I was just playing around while Dokyeommie was recording but it also kind of…fit.”

“Dokyeommie,” Wonwoo snorts.

Jihoon waves his hand close enough to Wonwoo’s face that his long fingernails almost scrape against Wonwoo’s nose. “Anyway, your lyrics for this were pretty good.”

“Right?” Wonwoo says, feeling a genuine smile spread across his lips, stretching the muscles in his cheeks. “I thought so too.”

“This self-absorbed bastard. Don’t let it get to your head but I took a look at the pages you marked off in your notebook too and there’s some really useable stuff in there for the next album. All your nerdiness didn’t go to waste after all.”

Even if Jihoon bracketed them in insults, the words of praise were like seeds planted in Wonwoo’s belly, and they bloomed warm and fragrant inside him. Jihoon was always economical with his compliments, so hearing them from him like this, sincerely, with just the two of them, says and means a lot. Jihoon’s also a pretty clever person, well-read in his own right and quick on his feet to boot. Impressing him gives Wonwoo a sense of invincibility.

“Oh no, look at your face. You’re stroking your own ego now, I can see it. I shouldn’t have said anything,” Jihoon grumbles, tucking his fingers into the giant pouch at the front of his sweatshirt.

“Can’t I enjoy getting complimented by the renowned self-producing idol, Woozi-ssi?” Wonwoo quips. It must be nice to command the respect of the entire Korean pop music industry, much less the bosses within their company, the senior labelmates, and everyone in the band, young and old. But then, Wonwoo supposes, it’s a lonely way to live, having everyone put you up on a pedestal, creating artificial distance with their reverence.

“Shut up. And didn’t you say you had to go to some meeting now?”

There’s still some time before he’s expected in the conference room, but Wonwoo knows a dismissal when he hears one. He leaves Jihoon to do whatever it is he gets up to by himself in the recording studio – Wonwoo has it on good authority that mostly it’s shimmying in his seat while listening to tracks he’s come up with himself, and by good authority he means he’s seen it himself – and drags himself up the stairs. It’s not supposed to be a serious meeting, apparently, just ‘a conversation’ with Jongpil-hyung, maybe the vice prez, that kind of thing. To figure out what he’s going to be doing or not doing in the upcoming promotion period.

Wonwoo prepares himself for a lot of things. Restricted schedules, skipping some dance stages, generally less activity. He has a lot of catch-up work to do, and even though the pain in his stomach is gone, the effects from lack of eating have stuck with him, making him bonier than ever.

He’s not prepared for being told:

“Maybe, for your health, it’s best if you sit out this round of promotions.”

“You want me to do nothing? For the entire cycle?”

Jongpil-hyung holds out his hands in a mollifying way. “It’s like the doctor said, even if the inflammation is gone, your body is still recovering. Can you imagine waking up at four in the morning to go for hair and make-up, waiting around at broadcasting stations for hours, performing, practicing, sleeping after midnight, and doing it all again the next day for several days in a row? Do you think you can handle something like that with your body right now?” Which, Wonwoo interprets, is to say that Wonwoo is weak. And, fair enough, he’s sleeping eight hours or more a day now which would be harder if they were moving around, but that’s what naps in the car and in waiting rooms were for.

“From the report, it sounds to me that you’re still susceptible to more health problems, fatigue, other infections. We don’t want you collapsing on stage now, or hurting yourself so that you’ll have chronic problems in the future. From the view of the company, and for your own sake, I think it’s better if you skip these promotions so you can join in the next ones at peak health.” Which, Wonwoo interprets, is to say that Wonwoo is an investment, and this is their way of maximizing returns.

“But we already shot the promotional material? The posters and music video.”

“Yes, I think we were all operating under the understanding that you would eventually join in, but that was before the results of the checkup made us consider the long-term outlook. This, fortunately, will not be Seventeen’s last album. There will be a next one for you to return to. We’re not trying to hold you back, you know.”

Wonwoo’s heart thumps in his chest, a buh-boom like a final firework whose light trails transform into smoke and twinkle out of sight.

 

 

*

 

 

They let him ‘think about it’, giving him time to talk to his parents, decide whether he wants to stay at the dorm or go home, and tell the others however he sees fit. But Wonwoo’s seen the press release, already typed up and ready to be sent out, so no matter how he goes about sorting it out on his own, the decision on the part of the company comes down as final.

He takes a long time to finally make the call. He’d seen his parents not that long ago, and this development is only likely to make his mother more insufferably suffocating with her concern. Her worries, about his health, his career, and so forth, when voiced aloud, remind Wonwoo of his own worries that he attempts to shove into tightly sealed boxes. The tape holding the cardboard together gets ripped off piece by piece with every word she utters until he’s standing neck deep in his own self-made packing foam of insecurity and silently begging his father to throw him a life raft before he drowns and can’t compartmentalize everything again.

The conversation doesn’t last long enough for permanent damage. Wonwoo sits alone afterward, staring up at the lights on the ceiling with his neck resting on the back of the chair until he gets a bit of a cramp in his back.

The lights are off in the living room when he returns to the dorms, even though he knows he’s not last one back. Everyone else who’s around has gone to sleep, leaving the bathrooms blissfully empty and preventing him from having to say anything to anyone, lest he blurt out the news about his impending absence or have it wrenched out of him unwillingly. Wonwoo brushes his teeth twice, once before showering, and then, while towelling his hair dry, forgets if he’s brushed them yet. He brushes a second time, eyes closed and forehead tilted toward the mirror so if he collapses from sleepiness, it’s not his nose or teeth he smashes.

Wonwoo doesn’t suppress the creak of the hinge, nor does he push the door open slowly, not expecting anyone to still be awake. There’s light inside the room, however, emitting from someone’s phone when he steps inside.

Junhui opens his mouth and doesn’t really say anything, voice breaking on the first syllable of ‘hello’ or something, he probably hadn’t even decided what to say before he started saying it. Wonwoo nods and averts eye contact, crawling into the bed on the other side of Soonyoung and pulling the thin summer sheets up over his head. The fabric blurs the light in the room and amplifies the brightness of his own phone screen, which he dims to scroll mindlessly through internet pages before falling asleep.

The first loud, cut-off exhale happens while Wonwoo’s scanning through an article reviewing high school uniform manufacturers, something that has no relevance to his own life. His thumb pauses mid-swipe, but then goes back to scrolling and navigating to the next page, which is about animal-inspired cake designs. The noises get louder, turning from breathy panting to soft and steady moaning. Noises in the night while people are sleeping aren’t that unusual for them. It could be a nightmare, could be something else, could be absolutely nothing, so Wonwoo doesn’t pay them any mind.

Except tonight Soonyoung’s grumbling doesn’t go away. His hums continue until it almost sounds like he’s in pain and Wonwoo tears the covers away from his own face. He reaches an arm over, ready to jab Soonyoung awake and put him out of whatever misery he’s facing.

“Hnngh, Wonwoo…”

His fingers freeze, arm still hanging in the air.

Soonyoung makes a grunt that now definitely does not sound like he’s hurting, and Wonwoo retracts his shaking hand, his upper teeth sinking into his lower lip.

“Wonwoo, please…” Soonyoung moans.

He tears his gaze away, and ends up looking straight into Junhui’s illuminated wide-eyed expression. Wonwoo yanks the sheets up over his head again and shoves a pillow on top for added muted effect, squeezing his eyes shut and listening to his pounding pulse fill his ears, drowning out all other sound.

 

 

*

 

 

In the morning, Junhui sidles up to him while eating breakfast, giving him sideways glances and always looking like he’s about to say something without opening his mouth to say it. Wonwoo announces his break loudly, and that affords him a safe berth of people constantly surrounding him for the rest of the day, to avoid talking about what Junhui _thinks_ needs talking about.

As the day wears on, him sorting stuff out in the recording room and packing things up, Wonwoo forgets about things, and by the time it’s late afternoon in the studio, it’s almost put out of his mind. Soonyoung bounds up to him with a coffee cup with a disarming smile, and Wonwoo forgets all about his guards until Junhui steps into his peripheral vision, staring at him intently.

“You got back late yesterday so you’re probably tired,” Soonyoung says.

Wonwoo pushes the cup back into Soonyoung’s hand quickly. “I can’t,” he says. “I’m…um, the dietary restrictions, remember? Not supposed to drink coffee. Too acidic, or something.”

And then he turns on his feet and tries to escape, but Junhui just catches him at the bottom of the stairwell.

“Are you really…?”

Since avoidance didn’t work, Wonwoo steps up with tactic number two, which is to feign obliviousness. “Really what?” He asks, blinking innocently.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“With Soonyoung, you know, are you just going to pretend nothing happened?”

“What,” Wonwoo says, taking a step forward with a grimace, “exactly, do you think happened?”

Junhui gapes back at him.

The strategy is working to Wonwoo’s favour because Junhui’s not only got a language disadvantage, but while he’s loud and never shuts up about inconsequential things, he’s also shockingly shy and inarticulate about things that he actually cares about, Soonyoung being one of them, apparently. If Wonwoo doesn't give an inch, Junhui can't take a mile.

“That’s right,” Wonwoo says with finality. “Nothing happened.”

“I can’t just pretend nothing happened!” Junhui erupts, expression quickly souring with anger. “He’s my friend! Is he not your friend too?”

“Don’t,” Wonwoo bites back sharply. He doesn’t yell like Junhui does, but his voice is low with sudden fury, cold enough to give someone frostbite.

The muscles on Junhui’s face certainly freeze, and he falls back two steps.

“Don’t talk like you could possibly know anything about my friendship with Kwon Soonyoung. Don’t talk like _anyone_ could know. He’s _my_ best friend.”

 

 

*

 

 

Friendship? That was simple.

When Wonwoo moved from Changwon to Seoul, his elementary school classmates wrote him farewell messages on a giant card and told him things wouldn’t be the same without him. Wonwoo parroted back the words ‘I miss you’ without any internal emotion, trying vainly to match the teary expressions on his friends’ faces without understanding what the fuss was about. They had fun together, and sometimes Wonwoo reminisced on stupid jokes they shared, but these people weren’t his soulmates, and pining for things was only a vague abstract in his mind.

He told each of them he’d write back and visit often, diligently dictating their names, but within two years of leaving the city he’d forgotten their faces and never felt a twinge of sorrow or longing.

Friendship was convenient, and enjoyable in the moment, but if there was one unassailable truth about humanity, it was that people came and went, in and out of each other’s lives, and the one constant was the changing nature of their interactions with each other. A good friendship was one that was used up to the max while it was thriving, not necessarily one that was distant but long-lived, a half-life that was sick or frail.

Furthermore, it didn’t matter how meaningful or strong a friendship was because that wasn’t the determinant of whether one would end or not. Friendships always ended. He didn’t toss people aside because whatever experiences he had with one person didn’t mean something to him, he didn’t toss people aside period. But people drifted, their interests veered, their goals in life and outlooks and opinions changed. Friendships changed because people changed, and accepting that made life a lot less painful than clinging onto things that were no longer good. He went with the flow, and if he lost touch with one person and then another, so be it. There was always a new friend to be made, he had no shortage of those, and he wasted no emotion or thought on things that couldn’t be saved.

In Wonwoo’s mind, all his friendships that had faded were ones that ended amicably, with no bad feelings on his part. As for the other party, that was their prerogative.

Friendship was living for years in the bunk bed above Kim Mingyu, knowing how his breathing changed when he fell asleep, being able to tell when he had a new crush at school and subsequently when he lost interest in the girl without ever seeing him on location, training Mingyu on what expressions Wonwoo had when someone could bother him while reading a book and when he should absolutely never be disturbed, hearing the changes in pencil scratching when Mingyu gave up on finishing homework to start doodling in his notebook, the both of them simultaneously getting up to run out to the convenience store because of their telepathic and synchronized stomachs.

“Why do they keep doing that?” Wonwoo groaned.

“Doing what?” Mingyu hadn’t even bothered to look up from the piece of card he was folding, neatly ruled lines penciled into a box.

“I got three questions asking if I call you boyfriend, husband, or honey today. _Three_.” He stuck his fingers up for emphasis even with Mingyu still looking away.

Mingyu laughed and unfolded the thing in his hands. “It’s cute that the fans are almost more invested in our friendship than we are.”

“Cute? Boyfriend? Seriously? You?” Wonwoo asked, his questions coming rapid fire.

“Are you insulting me? I’d make a great boyfriend. I can cook and clean and I’m tall. Where the heck are you going to find a better boyfriend than me, honestly?”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes and leaned back against the edge of the window. “Yeah, whatever, but you’re a boy. And I’m a boy. Boyfriends?”

This time it was Mingyu’s turn to roll his eyes. He made a clucking sound with his tongue and put down the art project in his hands to level Wonwoo with an expression of extreme exasperation. “Boys can have boyfriends, hyung. Don’t be silly. You know Frank Ocean? You like his music. Frank Ocean-sunbaenim likes boys and he’s a boy.”

Friendship was knocking Mingyu’s paper heart to the ground with a smile on his face and letting him play with someone his own age for once, it was natural, and as always, an eventual dwindle with time.

 

 

*

 

 

Wonwoo’s parents meet him at the train station. If it were up to his mother, she would have had his dad drive the van all the way to Seoul to pick him up.

“I’m worried about you in this condition and having to handle all of your luggage. We can come collect you and make a weekend trip out of it on the way back, drive through Daejeon and Daegu, maybe even detour to Busan.”

She sounds so hopeful Wonwoo has a hard time pushing the ‘no’ out of his larynx. He loves his mom, bless her heart, but sometimes, most times, she was in her own world.

“What time is the train you’re taking?” His father asks pragmatically. “I’ll come pick you up.”

The ‘I’ turns into a ‘we’ because his mother’s too restless to sit at home, leaping out of the passenger seat as soon as the road was clear to stand near Wonwoo. It’s unclear what she means to do at first because there’s no way she’s helping him move his suitcase in her heels, but after a moment of staring at him she pulls him into a hug, sighing over his shoulder in a tone that Wonwoo can’t discern as relief or worry.

“You’re home,” she says, and that too Wonwoo can’t tell if it’s supposed to be welcoming or long-suffering or excited.

He falls asleep on the drive back home, opening his eyes blearily when they go over a bump pulling into the driveway, and the sleepiness in his mind and clouding his eyes render the place unrecognizable. It hasn’t been _that_ long since he’s last been back, but he stands like a stranger on his own front step, waiting for his mother to bustle over and open the door, turns on the switch for the fan instead of the light in the bathroom, and gets the wrong drawer for cutlery when they’re setting the table for dinner.

His mother lays out a feast of dishes on their dining table, so many dishes of foods meant to promote some aspect of good health that it’s hard to see the dark wood underneath, each dish seeming to follow the recommendations of the hospital staff. Wonwoo sits across from his brother, who only seems to grow ever taller every time he sees him, and who eyes the food on the table like their mother has well and truly lost it.

It’s not like she can main this kind of production the entire month that he’s staying at home so he figures they’ll have to put up with eating leftovers from her overzealousness for a few days and that’ll be that.

“What are your plans for tomorrow?” His father asks.

“Uh,” Wonwoo says, looking up and putting his spoonful of rice down. Thinking fast, he comes up with, “Walking around, mostly. The neighbourhood seems to have changed a bit so I thought I’d see what was new. And after that, try to rediscover Changwon?”

“I’m sure you’ll find many new stores have opened up in the area. Some of your friends might be free since it’s the summer, so you could ask them to show you around places for young people,” his father suggests, before eating a spoonful of seaweed soup.

“You can take Bohyuk too,” his mom adds, before piling pieces of pork and carrots on top of the rice in Wonwoo’s bowl.

“It’s fine,” Wonwoo says quickly, meeting Bohyuk’s gaze and then shifting his focus back on their mother. “I’m not going to get lost. I’m more nervous I’ll get recognized.”

Bohyuk snorts. “Hotshot.”

Wonwoo breaks out into a grin, relieved that his brother, even if he looks older, is still familiar. “You know it.”

Later, after dinner, after they stop making small-talk, after the dishes are done, and after Wonwoo finishes washing up, he lies awake in bed, staring up at the phone screen held above his face, scowling at the names in his list of KakaoTalk contacts. It’s not like it’s an empty list. There’s even one or two people from Changwon on it. But for one reason or another, every single name he scrolls by makes him purse his lips, and find something unappealing about contacting them now, no matter how many times he scans through.

 

 

*

 

 

In the morning, he pulls a black mask up over his face, tugs a ball cap low over his eyes, and heads out with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans and not much more than a sliver of nose and eyes visible to the world. No one on the street spares him a glance, their eyes skimming over his figure so quickly they probably wouldn't look at him long enough to put his features together, even if the rest of his face were exposed. Then, especially in Changwon compared to Seoul, it’s possible that no one would recognize him anyway, whether because he’s not expected to be here or any other reason.

He thinks he’ll do some wandering on the streets, especially since no one looks at him twice, but he ends up at the café he searched up last night pretty quickly, his subconscious leading him to the glass front door. A bell chimes when he opens it. Still, no one pays him any mind, because even in the light of mid-day, the place is busy with so many patrons it’s hard to find an open table. It’s probably not something he should have, but Wonwoo joins the line-up at the cash register and stares up at the menu boards while waiting. He has the words ‘iced americano’ at the ready right up until the moment that he reaches the front of the line, and realizes that there’s no one around for him to offer the pretense of enjoying rich and bitter grounds.

“A medium iced caramel macchiato,” he says to the barista, and the wait for the drink to be made provides the right timing for someone to leave their seat and Wonwoo to take their place at the two-person table, in the corner of the café by the window.

He sips the sweet icy beverage slowly, relishing the pleasant taste on his tongue, so different from his usual darker orders. It’s everything he’s not yet supposed to consume – freezing cold, sugary, and acidic coffee, and the illicitness of the purchase only makes it all the better. For a long time, all he focuses on is the pretty gradient of liquids in his transparent cup, the distinct layers of espresso and milk blending into a uniform creamy beige colour as he slowly stirs his drink with the long plastic straw.

The novelty of the coffee eventually wears off. He takes a sip before turning his attention outside the tinted glass. As part of the land redevelopment and community restoration projects, trees now line the side of the road. Wonwoo thinks he remembers when they were planted; or at least, he remembers when they were smaller saplings tied to wooden beams planted in the earth for structural support. Trees helping trees. The wooden beams are gone now, and the trees, though still slender, tower high above him in height. He wonders if the people passing by remember their growth, or if they’ve even noticed. None of them seem to look at their surroundings as they walk past the storefront with their quick and sure-footed steps charging ahead toward wherever they need to go to. Some of them, with their heads slightly bowed, anxious or grim expressions on their faces in their rush, must have walked past these trees once a day, maybe multiple times a day, for weeks, months, or even years. But when something like that changes gradually, doesn’t your perception of it alter slowly too? Until you can’t tell when something’s come to look like that, or maybe it’s always been like that and you just haven’t noticed.

Wonwoo sits in the café for hours. He remains the only calm pinprick in the chaos of the noontime bustle, lasting to the quiet lull that comes as a reprieve for the employees after lunch is finished. People tap their hands and feet impatiently waiting in line, talk fast to convey their orders, walk fast to leave the store. Each of them comes and goes with a sense of purpose, even the school age kids who are younger than him, worrying about their grades and futures.

He doesn’t have a purpose. He doesn’t even have a direction. He’s been told stop and stay still. And he does. Wonwoo sits perfectly stationary in that chair until early evening, the only movement coming from his fingers, which turn the page of his book.

 

 

*

 

 

On the weekend, there’s no early morning bustle in the house of people getting ready for work, so Wonwoo doesn’t become roused awake from the commotion before the time he’s set on his alarm. That gives him the chance to sleep in a bit, eat something at a time that could be construed as either breakfast or lunch, and end up on the sofa with his father, who peruses each article in the newspaper with the weather channel playing on the television.

After watching the cycle of temperatures enough times to memorize the weather forecast for every city in the country, Bohyuk prods Wonwoo in the back. He turns and sees his brother standing with a piece of bread dangling from his teeth.

“Come on,” he says, after taking a bite and holding his food in his hand like a normal person.

He plays Overwatch with Bohyuk for hours.

“You’re proper shit at this, you know?”

“Shut up,” Wonwoo says. “When exactly do you think I’ve had time to play this before? Pop in a game between music shows?”

“Are you showing off about work right now? Or making excuses for yourself?”

Wonwoo grins, pulling both his feet up to sit cross-legged in his chair. “Bit of both.”

“Then you better use this vacation to get good.”

He hasn’t thought of this time as a vacation period. It hasn’t felt like a vacation period. He’s been too worried about everything, from being away to…well, other stuff. But when Bohyuk puts it like that, it seems a pretty good opportunity to one-up Jihoon when he gets back. When.

Their conversation mostly descends into swearing at each other or their teammates or the computer or the enemy after that. At some point, they hear their mother out in the hall doing something or another and stare silently at each other with bated breath but she doesn’t cotton onto their loud yells of profanities. It’s not until nearly dinner time before they talk about something that’s not in game.

“Are you still dating Youngri-noona?” Bohyuk asks.

Wonwoo blinks. “No, we broke up. A few months ago actually?”

“Wow, and you never told me…you’re kind of a terrible older brother you know,” he jokes.

“I didn’t say anything?” Wonwoo wracks his brain. “I guess a bunch of things happened right after so I was busy telling you about those things instead.”

“You’ve certainly had an eventful spring.” Bohyuk laughs. “I don’t mean to bring it up if there’s unpleasant memories but I liked her. She was always nice to the younger students in school, instead of, I don’t know, not hazing us but you know the seniors like to take advantage of the grades below them to do their dirty work and stuff. But she never looked down on us.”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says absently. “She was nice.”

“Then why’d you break up? Please don’t make an ‘I’m an idol now’ joke again.”

“I’m an idol now, Bohyuk, I gotta…” Wonwoo teases immediately. After Bohyuk’s gratuitous eye roll he murmurs, “I don’t really know either. She was the one who broke up with me.”

 

  

*

 

 

“You’re a really awful boyfriend, you know that? You just never _give_.”

“Have I forgotten an important date or something? I’ll enter it into my phone, you know I’m busy with work,” Wonwoo said, scratching at a non-existent itch at the back of one ear. “And I’m sorry about not being able to spend enough time with you but you know how my job is, and I don’t want to bother you when you’re busy with school either.”

“I don’t…do you think, if I were bothered by something like that, I’d ask if we could consider something long term? I know you don’t have time and that I don’t give you many options either. I know that, and I can accept something like that.” She ran her fingers through her hair aggressively, getting them caught in the tangles. “It’s not the tangible things, Wonwoo-goon, it’s—I don’t know.”

He gently pulled her hands away and began to undo the knots himself, slow and gentle with his fingers to separate the tied strands. She let out a rather hysterical sob.

“I can’t believe you. You can do things like this, stuff that any girl could only dream of their boyfriend doing.”

Wonwoo ran his tongue around the circle of his mouth twice, hands still combing through her hair, before letting himself ask, “Then where’s the problem?”

Youngri turned to face him, her hands held out in front of her, fingers closing into fists and then stretching out again, over and over. She started to say something, sighed, and pulled away from where Wonwoo was trying to link their fingers together. “If I were to take everything of you that you’ve given me and place it all on my palm, it’d be as substantial as grabbing a handful of air. Loving you… is like loving a mask. I think you’re in there somewhere, but while I’m showing you all the places I can be hurt, I don’t know who you are at all. What do you like? What do you dislike? You’re ambivalent about everything. Sometimes…Sometimes I don’t believe you _can_ be hurt.”

 

 

*

 

 

Over the course of the following week, other than the call with the others ahead of their comeback, all Wonwoo does is grind out twenty levels on Overwatch. He has a lot of free time on his hands that he spends on the computer, until he’s become part of the backdrop, at one with the furniture. His legs jostle up and down every so often to keep from going numb, and he eats lunch in front of the screen, getting up only for bathroom breaks.

“Your eyesight would have been fine if you hadn’t spent so much time glued to a computer,” Wonwoo’s mother says. She clucks her tongue when Wonwoo slips off his wire-frame glasses to clean a smudge on the bottom of his shirt. He ignores her.

Then, his father asks, “Why don’t you go outside?”

He hands Wonwoo a blank notebook with cream-coloured pages and lay-flat binding, as well as two sharp HB pencils.

“You can do some brainstorming for your music projects.”

“I use a computer to do that. Because I need to play whatever on my speakers and I type faster than I handwrite.”

“Why don’t you go outside?” his father suggests again, more firmly this time. “You can draw…” and here he pauses for a moment, seeming to remember the extent of Wonwoo’s artistic abilities being limited to music and stick figures. “Trees. Nature. Go sketch a bird or the grass.”

Ignoring his mother is easy, not because she’s his mother but because she’s just saying things vaguely. Wonwoo can’t ignore his father when he gives him a concrete plan of action.

After dinner, instead of returning to his roosting spot in front of the computer, Wonwoo shoves his feet into a pair of runners and drags himself out to the closest park. The summer sun hangs a few inches above the horizon, and some older children run around the playground, getting in their last few games of tag before the cover of darkness forces them to return home with their presently gossiping mothers. He finds an empty bench and sits by the arm rest, where he balances notebook and pencils, before crossing his legs and settling back.

The angle of the light behind the trees makes for pretty silhouettes that turn into charred lumps when Wonwoo puts pencil to paper. He sighs, wipes his palms on the thinning fabric of his old track pants, and stares up at where the first stars are just becoming visible with the sunset. Drawing was a horrible idea, not only because Wonwoo couldn’t, but it’s a futile endeavour with the fading light. Still, the fresh air against his face is tolerable, and eye muscles he hadn’t noticed he’d been straining relax at the sight of the greenery, happy not to be squeezed so he could focus intently on a close monitor.

One by one the remaining parents take their kids by the hand and lead them home, all of them reluctant to go away from the park and looking back longingly at those who still sit on the top of the slide. The odd dog walker or jogger passes by on the granite walkways.

Without warning, the streetlamp beside the bench flickers to life. Its fluorescent glow beats out the shine of the sun to illuminate Wonwoo’s abandoned notebook, bathing it in white light. The brightness competes with the distant crescent moon and pinprick stars strung up against the deep violet sky, although only a few of them are really evident given the light pollution from the city. He picks out Polaris, part of the only constellation he remembers despite reading dozens of books on astronomy as a kid. The other celestial bodies could be stars or planets or slow-moving airplanes for all he knows.

“Andromeda, Cancer, Ursa Major…” he lists, and then the streetlamp goes out for a portion of a second, and Wonwoo realizes that night has fallen like a silent thief who snatches all the light out from under your eyes. He exhales. Without the sun, the wind goes straight through his long-sleeved shirt, pilfered from Bohyuk’s dresser because he hadn’t brought much with him. Cars pass by on the main road, but the park feels quiet and still, like everything moving within it is doing so in a way to not get caught. He exhales again, slower this time, after taking a deep inhale. The moving air of his breath deviates in time with the unsteadiness of the streetlamp.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket.

“Hello?” In the background, a booming bass plays loud and distorted.

“Hi,” Wonwoo says.

“Really? Hi? Remembered to use a phone again, have you? Or is this you fulfilling some contracted once a week call?”

“Sorry.”

“It wasn’t meant to fish an apology out of you. I’m just amused that I know you’re probably glued to your phone all the time but can’t text back,” Soonyoung says with some amusement. Someone near him whoops.

Wonwoo actually has barely touched his phone because he’s been glued to his computer instead but he doesn’t explain. “Are you with the kids?”

A loud click drowns out the background noise, and then the music fades, as does the screaming that comes invariably whenever three or more of them are in a room together. “Not anymore. Although, Seungcheol-hyung is already crying that you haven’t called him.”

Wonwoo shrugs, realizes that Soonyoung can’t see him, and says nothing because he’s not sure how to translate a shrug into words.

“You’re shrugging right now, aren’t you?”

Wonwoo doesn’t reply again, shoulders freezing guiltily.

“Wonwoo-goon? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he says this time, quite quickly. In the same way Soonyoung could tell he was shrugging, Wonwoo knows that Soonyoung’s worrying at his lips right about now, whether with his teeth or his thumbnail. “Can you do me a favour?”

“Of course.”

“Can you go outside?”

“Right now?” Soonyoung asks incredulously. “Why do you want me to go outside?” The sound of his footsteps reverberates in the stairwell and his phone catches the echoes. “Surely this isn’t one of those game shows where it turns out you’re waiting here or something.”

“No, it’s just…are you outside or not?”

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there. Keep your hat on.”

The line holds silent for a few moments while Soonyoung makes his way outside the company building.

“Alright, I’m outside, now what?”

“Is it cloudy in Seoul right now?”

“No? I don’t know if you haven’t noticed but it’s kind of late out. Not exactly a good time for weather telling. It’s just dark.”

“Ugh,” Wonwoo complains. “Well, what do you see when you look up? Are there stars in Seoul?”

“Do you mean if I can see stars? A few, I guess. Isn’t it supposed to be hard to stargaze in the city because of light pollution, or whatever?”

“Yeah but, there’s light pollution in Changwon too. I just mean, like, what stars do you see?”

For a moment Soonyoung simply hums quietly. “The North Star? Honestly, I see stars but I don’t know what their names are or anything like that.”

“Is the rest of the Big Dipper there or no?”

“Yeah, I think so. A few of the stars are pretty faint but I think that’s the right shape. Why? What brought this on?”

“I couldn’t remember if you could see this in Seoul. I thought you could but I just forgot, I guess.” Wonwoo stares down the row of streetlamps that guides nighttime wanderers along the footpath. “It’s like a law of the universe or something, that you don’t notice something until it’s gone, or you no longer have access to it or something.”

“Wonwoo…” Soonyoung begins slowly, “is this your way of saying you miss us?”

“I’d better get back because you’re right, it is late. You probably should go back to rehearsing too. The comeback stages were good.”

“We miss you too,” Soonyoung says.

Their words clash in two distinct conversations that meet unsteadily over call towers and satellites. Wonwoo says, “Night, Soonyoung,” in clipped tones, shoving both topics to a forceful end.

Soonyoung smiles so widely Wonwoo’s sure he can _hear_ it over the goddamn phone. “Goodnight Wonwoo.”

  

 

*

 

 

Like a stuck tape that can only rewind and play the same tiny strip of magnetic film over and over again, Wonwoo’s brain holds Soonyoung’s last words in memory and puts them on repeat the entire walk back. He feels accidentally as if he’s rehearsing lines for a play, the sound of “ _Goodnight Wonwoo_ ,” haunting his every step, and every time he tries to clear his mind and think of something else, anything else, Soonyoung’s voice is back in his ears again bidding him goodnight.

“Oh good you’re back,” his father says after his feet find their way home. Physically, he’s inside the house, but mentally he’s still at the park and if he takes a moment to think about it, he can’t quite remember how he got from one place to the other. “We were beginning to wonder if you’d gotten lost or abducted.”

“Dad, I’m twenty-one.”

He shrugs. “There’s no rulebook that says twenty-one-year-olds can’t get hurt.”

Because Wonwoo returns so late and the others all have actual things to do with their lives in the morning, they’re all in bed by the time he puts his book down, ready to call it a day, and the light in the hallway is flicked off when he goes to the bathroom to wash up.

His hand goes to his dick rather thoughtlessly, a lingering after effect of living in a dorm room with 12 other boys and fighting for one of three showers that were never free. If you managed to snag the bathrooms while they were empty, you jacked off then or you wouldn’t get another chance for weeks. In his parents’ house, having access to a _bathtub_ where people only showered one at a time didn’t necessitate him using this opportunity. But with the three other people under their roof all asleep, it came reflexively.

Wonwoo shakes his head under the water, clearing his mind in the process to move his thoughts away from his family while touching himself. But as soon as his thoughts clear out, his brain returns to the “ _Goodnight Wonwoo_ ” mantra of Soonyoung’s voice. It beats steadily in his head. Naturally, the rhythm dictates the pace of his hand, or his strokes charge the pulse in his mind, but at the moment when he brings himself over the edge, “ _Goodnight Wonwoo_ ,” turns into “ _Wonwoo, please…_ ”

His eyes snap open in shock, and stay open despite the steady stream of water, staring down at his cum twisting and spinning with the clear water being sucked in by the drain.

 

 

*

 

 

In the morning, Wonwoo wakes up early and lies in bed staring at the ceiling. Despite not enjoying this particular line of thinking, he’s unable to refrain from checking the time on his phone and wondering if the others would be getting their hair and make-up done now. His wakefulness showed solidarity with the others at having to drag themselves out of bed maybe two hours after they had finally turned in for the night as part of the long-term cycle of fatigue that came with promotion periods. He kind of missed it, but didn’t really miss it, and the complicated emotional web was something he’d been avoiding thinking about or trying to untangle lest it reveal something unsavoury about himself.

He rolls out of bed, a weird nervous energy and hyper-awareness of his surroundings overtaking his body’s will to return to a state of slumber. If his parents are surprised at his early rising they don’t comment on it or show it on their faces, and Wonwoo grabs himself a set of cutlery to join them for breakfast wordlessly.

The nervous energy follows him around for the entire day. When he’s moving around, the feeling is less noticeable, but as soon as he sits down for too long or maintains a single position, the itchiness under his skin crawls out like it’s going to consume him, all of the discomfort scuttling over his skin and through his blood stream back to his chest, which is tight and congested. He thumps at it unsuccessfully, then takes off the thin jacket he wears to try to get some air, and once he’s in a plain t-shirt, he rotates his shoulders clockwise and anticlockwise to stretch. Still, the discomfort remains.

When his mother gets home from running her errands, she looks exhausted. She makes lunch, takes a nap, and then doesn’t get started on her laundry load until late afternoon. In the same amount of time, Wonwoo’s finished an entire book, gone out for coffee, and booted up the computer.

Sometime before dinner, she turns on the TV and sets up her ironing board right in the living room.

“Wonwoo, take a break from your game will you? You can come watch your friends perform on this show with me.”

The first week of the comeback, Wonwoo had watched all the performances. Sometimes he wouldn’t stick around for the other acts, but he felt like he had a duty to be part of the live voting when he could, and to show the other members support. He’d even taken a picture of his TV screen and sent it to the group chat so they would know he was watching. In the beginning, before he started watching, he was worried that seeing the others on TV would make him feel uncomfortable. That he’d feel jealous or disoriented that he was seeing them performing without him. Luckily, that didn’t seem to be the case and the unease with which he started dissipated enough that he could feel a quiet pride within him and outrage that they weren’t winning awards.

Over time, however, the wariness began to return. He couldn’t explain it, and he still can’t. But for some reason, one that he knew if he thought about it but was loathe to admit even in the safety of his own head, the more times he watched them perform _Aju Nice_ , the more trepidation he felt. He began to hate it. He stopped streaming the song or letting his brother play it while he was in the room. The thought of watching the others dancing on television filled him with dread and the beginnings of loathing, so he stopped watching. If someone else put the music on, he left to do anything else he could think of, even escaping to the bathroom if necessary.

Now he would do anything to not sit in front of the television while his mother watched, especially combined with the general feeling of shit he had today. “Why would I watch them sing and dance on stage when I could do that myself?” Wonwoo scoffs, not looking away from the computer to speak to his mother. He swallows and the lump in his chest grows ever bigger.

“Ah really? But you don’t want to watch your friends?”

“No,” says Wonwoo harshly. His mouse gets stuck at the edge of the mouse pad and he lifts it up to fling it back down with a loud smack. Fuck, now he was dead when he had a perfectly good shot.

His mother doesn’t take the hint. “Why not? It’s okay if they don’t win you know.”

Wonwoo makes a wordless noise at his computer screen in frustration. His mother’s comment gets forgotten in favour of headshots and dismaying at the refusal of his teammates to take the point. God, it’s so fucking stupid, why can’t, ugh—. The jumble of annoyed thoughts occupies the forefront of his mind enough that the rest of the world, his mom, the music on TV, anything else, cannot infiltrate.

“Can’t believe you’ve been playing this for weeks and still suck,” comes Bohyuk’s voice suddenly. Wonwoo can’t afford to look back and see his brother’s face but he can tell it’s probably smug.

“If you came just to be a jerk, go away,” Wonwoo says.

Bohyuk places his hands on Wonwoo’s shoulders. “Man, chill. It was just a joke. You know it was just a joke. You’re so tense these days, hyung, like, everything makes you get so defensive.”

“I’m not being defensive,” Wonwoo says defensively.

“Yeah, fine, but you’re all on edge and impatient and stuff. Maybe dad’s right and you’ve been cooped up in the house for too long. It’s making you all weird.”

“I’m not cooped up!” Wonwoo protests. “I go outside and stuff, take walks.”

“I hardly count the walk there and back to the nearest café a real walk,” Bohyuk says drily. “You know what you need? A birthday party. To celebrate and go wild this weekend, get it all out of your system.”

Wonwoo doesn’t reply.

“I’m serious! Do you want me to organize it for you or something? I’ll do it.”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes, or, lifts them away from the screen for as long as a few milliseconds. “I haven’t had a birthday party since fifth grade for a reason, Bohyuk. Isn’t that a bit childish?”

“Not like that,” Bohyuk whines. “I don’t mean where we sit around in a circle and play jinsil geim after cutting a cake. I mean, like, go for drinks and stuff. Go clubbing.”

“You’re not even legal!”

Bohyuk’s hands squeeze at the muscles in Wonwoo’s shoulders. “That doesn’t mean I can’t know things.”

 

  

*

 

 

A dozen or so empty banana milk containers lined the floor, ready for rinsing before being relegated to recycling. The cake had been cut, its chocolatey evidence lingering around spoon handles, on the tablecloth, the floor, crumbs in the folds of clothing and sticky on sweaty palms. Wonwoo’s father left for work in the morning after seaweed soup; his mother had disappeared sometime after the last person had set down their fork, seemingly satisfied that she wasn’t going to have to bring out more food for the ravenous pack of schoolchildren taking up residence in her living room.

Six of them, seven if you counted Bohyuk which Wonwoo didn’t in this situation, sat cross-legged in a circle around a blue-tipped ballpoint pen.

“Birthday boy spins first then?”

Wonwoo gave a lopsided grin and twirled the pen with his fingers. It spun and careened sideways before finally coming to a halt, the nib pointing somewhat between two of his friends, who immediately both shrieked that it was meant for the other.

They always played the truth game. At every birthday party, and even sometimes at school if there was nothing else to do during break. The questions never changed, either, always some variation of ‘who do you like’, and even if he seemed to avoid the question every time, by now everyone knew Donghyun had a crush on Hyeri and that Minhyuk thought Jungmin’s older sister was hot. Still, it was the game they always played, because it gave them excuses to open up to each other and say what was on their minds without bringing it up of their own initiative, and generated some kind of camaraderie from knowing and keeping each other’s secrets.

“Alright Donghyun, no getting out of it this time. You like Seo Hyeri. Right?”

“Of course I like her,” Donghyun said breezily, “doesn’t everyone? She’s nice to everyone in the grade.”

A chorused groan went out from the group, and even Wonwoo’s little brother seemed to catch the sense of disappointment and covered his face with his hands. And so the circle went, with stutters and stammers, blushing faces and punches to the shoulder whenever anyone got too embarrassed. Wonwoo laughed, laughed again, and laughed some more with his hands clapping together, delighted at the array of flustered reactions elicited by such simple questions.

When the pen finally pointed at Wonwoo, someone piped up, “Don’t ask him who he likes because he’ll start talking about how he’s too good looking for the peasants at our school again.”

“Well, if you’re so smart, you come up with a better question then,” Jungmin quipped.

“Fine. Wonwoo, would you rather kiss Ahn-saem or Han-saem?”

“Gross!” Kwangho yelled, loud and right in Wonwoo’s ear.

Ahn-saem was their homeroom teacher a year ago, an elderly woman with wrinkles on wrinkles lining her face and hands, whose hands sometimes shook a little when she was handing back test papers. Han-saem was younger, but covered in muscle; their phys ed teacher who had the voice of a truck and scared the pants off Wonwoo whenever she yelled at him to stop fooling around in class.

“I agree with Kwangho,” he said. “Neither. I’d rather kiss Bohyuk than either of them.”

“Hey, you gotta choose. Picking Bohyuk’s a cop out, unless you actually want to kiss him in front of us.”

“Ugh, can you imagine kissing either of them, though? That’s disgusting.”

Minhyuk, ever the realist, tilted his head. “I don’t know, I kind of feel like kissing Ahn-saem would just be like kissing your grandma, you know, since she’s so old. If you kiss Han-saem she might eat you and I’d rather not risk dying.”

Wonwoo made a face. “That doesn’t make it any better.”

“Alright then, choose a girl you _would_ kiss. You don’t have to like her, just, you know, you’d kiss her. Because she’s pretty or something.”

He went down a mental list of all the girls they knew but came up with a grimace. “I can’t think of any girl I want to kiss.”

“Oh come on,” Jungmin said, “now I think you’re hiding someone from us. There must be some girl you want to kiss. All normal boys should want to kiss a girl, even my mom said so when we were watching the news last week. There’s gotta be at least one.”

“What about Sungmi?” Minhyuk suggested helpfully. “She’s pretty.”

“Yeah, alright,” Wonwoo relented, still trying to think of a single girl he’s ever wanted to kiss. “But only because she’s like, the single girl I can think of who wouldn’t immediately run and tell all her friends what happened.”

 

 

*

 

 

Wonwoo waits until after his birthday before going back to the dorms. That way, he doesn’t have to contend with awkward birthday greetings on top of seeing people there or at the company for the first time in ages. When he arrives midday, the rooms are all empty except for the kitchen, where Mingyu is prepping a late lunch or mid-afternoon snack – it’s hard to say with his appetite.

“Hyung!” Mingyu says, taking in Wonwoo and his suitcase with comically widened eyes. He sounds more surprised than happy to see him.

He hadn’t exactly given them much heads up, Wonwoo supposes, but it’s not exactly the welcome back party he was expecting.

“Hey,” he says, cutting off Mingyu’s obvious comment about his return. “Is everyone else at the company?”

“Yeah. No one’s slept in weeks because of recordings and rehearsals. I think Soonyoung-hyung’s going to collapse soon, but no one else is handling it well either.”

Wonwoo dumps his things without unpacking and accompanies Mingyu back to the company building, taking a breath before stepping inside to steady himself after spending so long away.

Inside, things are hectic.

Other than Jeonghan pouring him something to drink sometime when others might be considering dinner, Wonwoo receives no reprieve from the moment he’s spotted.

A staff member wants to ask him about presents, Chan asks if he’s going to join their dance practice when he’s yet to learn any of the choreography, and all this before he’s even managed to squeeze himself into the recording studio. That’s where he has to go to sing any lines he has for songs at the concert, and when he gets there Jihoon addresses him like the last time they saw each other was yesterday instead of a month ago and starts speaking in technical jargon about song production to him in a half-dead voice that Wonwoo only partially understands.

All things considered, perhaps he shouldn’t have thought things would go differently. Everyone was busy, people were stressed, and no one had the time to drop everything they were doing to, well, what was he expecting anyway? For them all to pamper him? Run and greet him with hugs? That kind of fawning would have been even weirder. And it is kind of nice that they’re treating his presence as normal rather than special. It makes him feel less like an invalid and more capable of contributing to their efforts, like he belongs here working with them instead of just missing out on a significant portion of their promotions.

There’s no grand celebration of his return, but the group chat gets inundated with welcome back messages and cute stickers, from people he hasn’t even seen yet because they’re in different parts of the building. Wonwoo’s a quiet person. He can do a quiet comeback.

 

 

*

 

 

Maybe his ears re-sensitized themselves to noise because nothing ever boomed from sound systems in Changwon. Maybe he’d been away from Seventeen’s shenanigans for too long and his ears missed the constant ruckus of twelve other yelling and screaming boys living in close proximity. Whatever the reason, the rehearsals disorient Wonwoo whose in-ears only help when he’s actually wearing them. He takes one out to hear himself and it’s like he’s been steamrolled with sound, his ears ringing dully even after retreating backstage, where the vibrations from the strength of the amps don’t rock through his feet and up his spine.

“Hey,” Seungcheol says, lightly wrapping an arm around Wonwoo’s shoulders, “you alright?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says, feeling a bit peckish despite his answer.

Moreover, he’s getting jittery. He hunches, shaking from the tingling in his belly, so different from the pain that took him out of commission. If he stands straight he thinks that it’ll be obvious how much he’s shaking from the nervousness. Wonwoo’s been doing this for way too many years that he’s getting stage fright now, breaking out into nauseous cold sweat just from the heat of the spotlight.

Seungcheol hands him some water in a thin paper cup, and offers him a light smile. “You got this. You’ve been doing this for ages. You’re a pro.”

“Right,” Wonwoo murmurs. “I’m a pro.” He doesn’t feel like a pro. He feels like a tiny speck pretending to be something significant while thousands of people scrutinize his speck-ish form.

Seungcheol claps him on the shoulder warmly and leaves Wonwoo with his water. The surface ripples with the movement of his hands. He stares at the hypnotic outward movement of concentric circles in his water cup for a long time, with his back against the wall, until some of the others walk by.

“Hyung, you coming?” Seokmin asks, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

“Yeah, let me just,” Wonwoo breaks off to chug the water down.

Soonyoung says, “Isn’t it exciting to be back?” and ruffles Wonwoo’s hair for as long as he can get away with before Wonwoo’s knocking his hand away.

A wave of eerie calm washes over him, trickling from the top of his head down his neck and under the collar of his shirt all the way down to his Achilles tendon, like he’s had a bucket of the stuff poured over him.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says, crushing the flimsy container in his grip with an assuredness he hadn’t felt mere moments ago. “It’s nice.”

When he stands on stage, the bass booming from all around him, lights dimmed for the audience but flashing all kind of patterns toward them, he feels a familiar jolt. It’s electric, a slow and warm spread that amplifies with the huge increase in cheers when he starts singing. That energy surges through him and keeps him grounded. He can’t tell if he should laugh or cry so he does neither, and looks out into the sea of lightsticks waving for them, for _him_ , and that right there is an ocean he’s been wanting to drown in again.

Backstage, doubled over with his hands on his knees, sweat covering every inch of his skin, and his hand braced on his knees, Wonwoo smiles.

“Hey.” Someone taps on his back. “You alright?”

Wonwoo looks up to see Soonyoung peering closely at him with tissues pressed all over his face to soak up his sweat without smearing his make-up. He looks like a weird monster with skin flaps, a white alien.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says, this time meaning it.

 

  

*

 

 

“Your turn, Seungkwannie,” Soonyoung said, smacking Seungkwan in the chest with his facecloth. All of them were still awake, feeding off the remaining adrenaline from their recording work earlier today, a photoshoot for their debut materials.  _Debut_. Finally. 

Seungkwan turned to hide behind Mingyu, avoiding further whaps from the damp towel with his face scrunched in disgust. “All right, all right. Just because I’m about to wash up doesn’t mean you need to get me any dirtier with your gross things,” he whined.

Soonyoung was clamouring up the ladder of the bunk bed with his towel over his shoulder now and he stuck his tongue toward the two sitting on the lower mattress. “I’m not dirty, you are,” he said, before depositing himself on top of Wonwoo’s stomach and wiggling to find a comfortable sitting position.

Wonwoo let out a small breath at the added weight, but didn’t look up from his translated copy of _James and the Giant Peach_.

“Wonwoo-yaaaaah,” Soonyoung whined.

He flipped the page.

“Why is Wonwoo-goon ignoring me?” Soonyoung asked his blue towel, acting out a skit with it functioning as a hand puppet. “Isn’t he so mean?”

Wonwoo finally lifted his eyes from his book. “You’re dirty,” were the first words he said. He slipped the bookmark between the pages he was looking at and tucked the novel underneath his pillow.

“I just washed, I’m as clean as can be,” Soonyoung said, reaching forward to pull at Wonwoo’s cheeks in retaliation for the insult.

Soonyoung touched people’s faces a lot. Sometimes it’d be a full head stroke, sometimes he’d run his fingers over your face forcing you to close your eyes, or tugged at your cheeks, or rubbed at your jaw, or so on and so forth. The list was endless. And he did it to everyone, regardless of whether they were older or younger, so long as it was a member of the band. They’d all grown used to it, and accepted his face mauling for what it was, Soonyoung’s way of demonstrating affection. It must have had something to do with the fact that his entire family touched each other all the time. Butt slaps, leaning against each other, head pats, it was as if they couldn’t carry on conversations without reassuring each other that they were physically there. Wonwoo himself had been subjected to one of Soonyoung’s mother’s bone-crushing hugs before.

“You’re not,” Wonwoo said, his fingers going out to Soonyoung’s cheek. He plucked at the piece of glitter stuck to the skin under Soonyoung’s eye with the delicateness of someone fishing out an eyelash from an eye. It was about as difficult a task, too.

Soonyoung turned his face into Wonwoo’s hand. “What are you doing?”

Committing the sight to memory. “Trying to make you less ugly.”

“Excuse me!”

“You’re covered in this stuff still,” Wonwoo said, showing him the flecks of glitter he’d been picking off. “Didn’t you use make-up remover?”

“Are you serious? It’s still on me? This stuff is even harder to get off than it was to put on!”

Soonyoung had sat in the make-up chair for nearly an hour to get his face painted blue with a layer of densely packed sparkles. It coated his neck as well, and though the make-up people did their best to wipe it off after filming their pre-debut trailers, Soonyoung had still been shiny in the car, and it clung to him even after a shower.

“If you stay still I’m trying to help you,” Wonwoo said with a half snort. He flicked glitter away from Soonyoung’s eyes, but it didn’t come off with gentle brushing. Each piece had to be peeled away from skin individually.

“Go faster,” Soonyoung whined.

“I’m just going to give up. You’re going to be stuck looking like a hideous _Avatar_ forever.”

“No! Why?”

“It’s too much effort,” Wonwoo said. His hand was still cupped around Soonyoung’s face, thumb brushing over the skin between his mouth and jaw. It wasn’t really helping, but Soonyoung’s skin was soft under his fingers and it seemed only fair that the face-toucher had his face touched at some point.

Soonyoung pouted. “You’re so mean.”

Wonwoo didn’t respond. The glitter suited Soonyoung. It sparkled the way he did, all shiny and bright like the guiding light of the moon and stars on a clear, dark night.

 

 

*

 

 

“Oh my God, you’re still awake? Go to sleep.”

Darkness shrouds the room and gives it the appearance of emptiness. Or so it would seem if not for the others who were sleeping, occasionally rustling their sheets or breathing heavily, all of them falling asleep quickly from being exhausted exhausted by the past days of performances and rehearsals without rest. Wonwoo alone holds his phone close to his face, and even though the settings are set to the dimmest possible, the backlight acts as a spotlight, illuminating the area around his bed.

“Are you that excited to leave tomorrow? It’s not like the first time you’ve gone overseas.”

“Isn’t it your fault that my body has become maladapted and doesn’t know how to sleep at night anymore?” Wonwoo asks cheerily.

Soonyoung groans and thrusts his hand to Wonwoo’s chest, knocking his phone aside. “Is that why you’re getting back at me by being all bright and distracting?”

Wonwoo grabs Soonyoung’s wrist and uses his fingers to flop his hand back and forth around the joint. “Oooh, you’re smarter than you look, Kwon Soonyoung.” He grasps firmly around Soonyoung’s forearm and moves it to play a clapping game against Wonwoo’s free hand.

“Ugh.” Soonyoung steals back his arm so he can use both hands to rub at his face and squints his eyes open so they’re just two slits. “At least you’re feeling better.”

“What?”

“I’m glad.”

The light of his phone goes off after five minutes without activity so Soonyoung can’t see Wonwoo frowning or shaking his head and Wonwoo can’t tell if Soonyoung’s just saying that or if he means something by it.

“Better than what, exactly?”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Soonyoung says. “I was going to say since you came back because while you have periods where you’re kinda happy, you’ve also been so tired and…I’m not scolding you but don’t you think you’ve been a bit, I don’t know, sensitive?”

Wonwoo sucked in his breath loudly.

“And I don’t mean like you’re a bad person, when we’re tired we all get a bit…anyway, like I was saying, I originally thought that but then I thought some more and you were a bit moody during that time you were away too, and really awful about replying back to anyone’s messages,” Soonyoung rambles. “And then before that you were in a lot of pain so it was a bit understandable that you were patient, and there was a bit of time when things were good but before that you were also kinda tetchy because of Youngri. So I guess, I don’t know, it’s just been a while since you’ve not been so…stressed.”

“I’m stressed?” Wonwoo doesn’t feel stressed. He doesn’t feel any different from this time last year. Each day of each week of each month passes by as it does, and he meets each of them one step at a time.

“This year hasn’t been all that nice to you,” Soonyoung says delicately, seeking out Wonwoo’s arm in the dark again. His fingers squeeze around the muscles like he’s massaging them, and only then does Wonwoo realize he’d been clenching his hands into fists, his triceps taut.

Slowly, without a reply from Wonwoo, Soonyoung’s fingers slow and then stop moving altogether, falling limply in the space between their beds. He can’t see it, but Wonwoo can feel his own chest rising and falling with each breath, and in his left arm, a lingering contracting sensation prickles at him.

When he thinks Soonyoung’s asleep, although before his soft snores start to fill the room, mixing with the sounds of everyone else’s slumbering breathing, Wonwoo says very quietly, “At first I was annoyed that everyone was fixated on me when I was fine, but then when everything went okay without me I wished everyone would pay attention to me again. It wasn’t even like I was being replaced. It was just…it seemed like I was unnecessary. There was no hole without me. I guess that’s what you guys were supposed to make it seem like, but I wanted you to need me. Is that selfish?”

Soonyoung inhales a loud and wet sounding breath. “You’re not selfish. Sometimes I wish Wonwoo-goon would be a bit more selfish.”

  

 

*

 

 

If he thought it was hot in Seoul, Wonwoo simply hadn’t had a good point of comparison. He’s lying in his hotel bed in Singapore, the shades drawn despite the daylight to block out some of the hot summer sun, and the air conditioning cranked up (or down?) to as low as Hansol could figure out how to work it.

There’s a sharp knock on their door, and Hansol, who is lying in his own bed and listening to something on his phone, doesn’t hear it, But Wonwoo doesn’t want to get up to open the door, so he throws one of the numerous pillows over to catch his attention. Hansol pulls out an earphone and gives Wonwoo a look.

Wordlessly, Wonwoo points in the direction of the hall. There’s another knock.

Hansol, because he’s a good, diligent kid, doesn’t fuss or question anything. He slides off the bed quickly and pads off in his white hotel slippers to see who’s calling.

“We went out,” breezes in Minghao’s voice. A few moments later, he and Junhui appear, both wrapped around Hansol in startling uncomfortable ways for the sticky humidity in the air, but Hansol doesn’t seem to mind, and pats Minghao’s arm calmly.

“Is it nice?”

“Yep,” Minghao says happily, resting his head on Hansol’s shoulder.

“And we brought back coffee,” Junhui says cheerily, passing along some iced espresso drink with floating ice cubes and a layer of condensation. “Want one, Wonwoo?”

“It’s mid-afternoon. If you drink coffee now, won’t you be too restless to sleep at night?” Wonwoo asks loudly. He squashes all memories of drinking coffee even late at night that bubble up in his betrayer of a brain.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Hansol says easily, undisturbed by Wonwoo’s tone of voice.

Junhui, for his part, holds the iced coffee in his hand without moving, and there’s a wounded expression on his face that grates at Wonwoo’s brain some more, present situation mixing with past memories.

“Let’s go then,” Minghao says, tugging on Junhui’s arm. And then Hansol has his earbuds in and is lying in bed again, and it’s like the other members were never there.

Except, before the door closes fully, Wonwoo can clearly hear Minghao’s high voice with his accented Korean saying, “I told you, I don’t know why you even tried. He’s just being an asshole to you, and you shouldn’t be the one trying to get him to play nice. He was like this with Min—”

Luckily, the door closes and Wonwoo is good at pretending he hasn’t heard things.

  

 

*

 

 

With everyone still out in summery outfits for the unseasonably warm fall in September and October, the sudden chill midway through November brought a whole majority of people falling sick to contagious colds that spread quickly in dorms like theirs. Wonwoo, thankfully, had avoided the cold front by staying huddled up indoors with his books, but he was now on the defensive against catching anything from the others with extra vigilance. He was using plastic cups to drink water, and never shared drinks, even with seemingly healthy people. You never knew when they were harbouring an infection whose symptoms simply hadn’t manifested yet.

“Is that jjajangmyeon?” Jihoon hobbled into the living room, dragging his backpack behind him.

“Yes,” Wonwoo said, continuing to spin the noodles around his chopsticks without looking up.

“Share,” Jihoon demanded, in a very Jihoon-ish way that didn’t provide room for protest.

Wonwoo glared at him and pulled the delivery bowl away from Jihoon, closer toward himself. His hackles raised, and he positioned his back broad and straight between his food and the intruder. “No, I’m not sharing. Get your own.”

“The fuck man, it’s jjajangmyeon.”

“Yeah, it’s _my_ jjajangmyeon, so you can get your own if you want some.” Wonwoo shoved his bite into his mouth and slurped up the bits of noodle that were still hanging out of his mouth. He chewed loudly and deliciously, smacking his lips after he swallowed. “They’re delicious. Want the number of this place?”

“Wow, you’re such an asshole,” Jihoon muttered. He turned around and kicked his backpack all the way to his room, before shutting the door behind him with a bang.

Satisfied, Wonwoo slouched back down in his chair, resuming a more comfortable position, and polished off his late-night meal in record time.

After he’d left the empty bowl by the front entrance, the door that Jihoon had shut opened and Soonyoung padded out in his pyjamas.

“Dude,” Soonyoung called. “Hey, you, Jeon Wonwoo. Did you really not let Jihoon have any of your jjajangmyeon?”

“So? If he wanted some he could have gotten his own.” Wonwoo had returned to his seat at the table, sitting with one foot propped up on the chair.

Soonyoung opened his mouth, closed it, and then shook his head in disbelief. “Man. _Man_. You’re such a dick. You know it’s his birthday today, right?”

 

 

*

 

 

Airports, after a while, all start looking and feeling the same. You get off a plane, walk down the air bridge, cross through the terminal, wait in a long line up for customs, find your baggage, and then brace yourself for the crowd of people outside. Reverse the process when you’re on a departure. Sometimes they have different layouts or languages, and the nicer ones will have welcome signs so you can’t mistake where you’ve landed, but they’re always so hectic, trying to get through security, making sure you make your flight, find your luggage, get back to the hotel on time…

The more Wonwoo travels, the more the days bleed together, and he starts to forget where they are. Has to check before they go on stage so that he’s saying the right greetings, so he doesn’t accidentally say the wrong place name – it’s happened before.

“It’s nice in Australia,” Soonyoung says, lying horizontally across his bed with his legs hanging off the end, feet planted on the floor.

Is that where they were? Well, it makes sense. It’s cold, Wonwoo was told to pack jackets and sweaters, and if they’re in the Southern hemisphere, well, it’d be winter where it was summer for them. It’s nice here, Wonwoo supposes, in the same way that it’s kind of nice everywhere you have access to food, water, and shelter. Every city has their own unique traits and quirks, but more often than not, people lived in the same ways – sleeping on some kind of bed, eating some kind of food, and wandering among some kinds of shops.

“We’ll get to see some of it right? Filming the thing? Where’s—wait, who are you rooming with again?”

“Jisoo-hyung. And yeah, I hope if we’re filming in groups that I get him or Hansol. They can speak English.”

“Aren’t you the one who always says your English is very good?”

Soonyoung lifts his head up to give Wonwoo, lying on the other bed in a similar position, a stink-eyed look. “My English _is_ very good, thank you very much.”

He did his best to cover up the snort and not say anything scathing in reply.

“Who are you rooming with?” Soonyoung asks, setting back down in the huge blankets and comforter, piled thickly on a plush bed to ward off the cold.

Wonwoo thinks for a moment before replying, “Minghao.”

“Aww, our cutie.”

“Yeah…” Wonwoo twists so he’s lying on his side instead of his back, staring at the headboard of the bed instead of the blank ceiling. “I don’t know. We’re quiet. He does whatever on his phone, I do whatever on mine.”

There’s a rustle from the other side of the room while Soonyoung props himself up on his elbows.

Wonwoo darts his eyes down to peak at Soonyoung’s confused expression and looks back up again.

“Really? Usually he’s a pretty active roommate and plays around a lot.”

“I mean, I guess we all know each other pretty well because we’ve lived and worked together for so long, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people I’m closer to and others I’m less close to. I’m not like you, Soonyoung, close to literally everyone.”

“Not everyone sees you with your feet bare,” Soonyoung says.

Wonwoo laughs. “What are you talking about? I walk around the dorms barefoot all the time.”

“God, I don’t mean that literally. Aren’t you supposed to be the one who likes reading books? I mean, you don’t like exposing yourself to people. It makes sense, I don’t think anyone really likes feeling vulnerable. But I’m open, I laugh easily, I cry easily, people think they know me easily. It’s harder to do the fake it until you make it thing with you because you refuse to fake it. It’s not a bad thing to dislike falsehood and value integrity. You don’t have to worry about it, everyone likes you.”

Wonwoo keeps his mouth close to the sheets, hoping they absorb some of his sentiment. “Of course everyone likes me. I’m funny, smart, and handsome. Who wouldn’t like me?”

“Yeah, okay.” Soonyoung snorts.

“I’m not worried that people don’t like me,” Wonwoo says more truthfully.

“I know. You’re worried people don’t need you.”

“I thought you were asleep when I said that?”

Soonyoung hums. “I think I was, but I remembered anyway. Look, you like playing around and people liking you for who you are, but you don’t like when people can’t get serious or giving someone the opportunity to know who you are in case they hurt you. They’re tough things to balance. I get it. It’s okay.”

“I’ve never said that.”

“You don’t need to. You don’t need to tell me exactly everything you like or dislike for me to figure it out.” He points two fingers toward his eyes and then in Wonwoo’s direction, back and forth several times. “I see straight through you.”

That’s what Wonwoo’s afraid of.

 

 

*

 

 

Wonwoo, a little bit by accident, a little by a twist of fate, ends up holding open a door for Junhui in Hong Kong and gets the scariest and brightest smile he’s ever seen in his life in return. And because Wonwoo is a lion (of the variety in _The Wizard of Oz_ unfortunately, and not of _The Chronicles of Narnia_ fame), he tucks tail and bolts back to his shared room with Jihoon before they have to talk about it. Things. Anything.

“What’s got you in such a rush?” Jihoon asks, standing by his open suitcase with an open, blinking expression. He keeps his hands tucked inside the hem of his shirtsleeve as he rummages around for his toiletries.

“Nothing,” Wonwoo says quickly.

“Did you make someone mad with your jokes again? Running away?”

“Something like that.” He makes a vague wave of his hands.

“Jerk.”

“You think so?”

Jihoon paused, toothbrush in hand, and turned to raise an eyebrow at Wonwoo. “You growing soft on me now? And I thought we could actually do some damage in Overwatch together when we get back…”

“You can win video games without being an asshole,” Wonwoo mutters.

“Stop,” Jihoon says impatiently. “You’re not an asshole.”

It’s been almost two years since it happened, but the things relating to sitting on Wonwoo’s mind have been weighing down a bit more and a bit more lately. “Do you remember that time it was your birthday and you’d come back exhausted to see me with a bowl of jjajangmyeon, and you asked if you could have some and I said no? It was your birthday. Only an asshole would say no on your birthday.”

“Only an asshole would say no on my birthday if they knew it was my birthday. You didn’t know. So you’re not an asshole. Honestly, if I had to use one word to describe you it’d just be ‘weird’.”

Wonwoo looks straight into Jihoon’s gaze, heart pounding. “…Weird. Weird how?”

“You have an old man’s sense of humour.”

He exhales, deflates feeling the anxiety that had been filling his chest leave him. “Says you.”

“Fair. Maybe we’re all weird.”

“I for one think we’re two of the less weird members of the group. At least it’s not like we’re Seungcheol-hyung or something, right?”

“Wait, what? Seungcheol has a bad sense of humour?”

Wonwoo laughs a bit nervously, lifting a finger to scratch at the junction between the back of his ear and his skull. “I don’t know, sometimes he can do weird things…” He trails off to give the impression of thinking about an example, although there’s one in particular that he wants to know Jihoon’s thoughts on. Jihoon’s their shadow leader; if it weren’t for him and Soonyoung working in the background alongside Seungcheol then Seventeen wouldn’t work at all. And Jihoon’s their prodigy, someone whose opinion Wonwoo has always respected. “Remember that time he kissed you on the cheek? He thought that was so funny.”

Jihoon rolls his eyes. “Which time?” He asks with a sigh of resignation. “He’s honestly done that more times than I can count.”

“Um.” Wonwoo’s thinking about the embarrassing noise he made during the most recent occurrence for some televised game, which he tried to cover up with an extended high-pitched yell.

“I mean, it’s a bit weird to me because I don’t want to be kissed but it’s not…” Jihoon’s eye kind of twitches. “I’ve been talking about this with, uh, some of the others and it’s not that weird? As long as it’s not me, I don’t mind, I guess.”

Strangely, Mingyu’s voice flashes in Wonwoo’s mind, something about Frank Ocean-sunbaenim.

“Thanks Jihoon,” Wonwoo says.

“For what?”

 

 

*

 

 

“You know in most movies, right, if you anthropomorphize an animal, at least we know that like, some animals can demonstrate empathy and stuff.”

Wonwoo’s right eyebrow rises higher than the backboard behind him, and he refolds his hand on his lap over his legs which are stretched out in front of him on the hotel room bed. Soonyoung’s lying near the other end, on his stomach, staring intently at the TV screen which had been inconveniently placed closer to one of the beds than the other. Wonwoo wants to ask where Soonyoung learned the word anthropomorphize but Soonyoung’s talking again before he gets the chance.

“It makes sense. Animals, they’re living. But are the cars in the _Cars_ universe alive? Like, do they feel pain? They get sad and happy and angry and stuff. Does that even make sense? No, I mean, it doesn’t we’re supposed to suspend our disbelief but I just want to know, like, the logistics of this.”

“I shouldn’t have let you watch this. You can’t even understand it!” They’re in Taiwan and the movie has been dubbed in Mandarin, with English subs Soonyoung can’t read lining the bottom of the screen. That doesn’t stop him though, considering Soonyoung’s pretty much memorized this movie by now.

“Every chance to watch _Cars_ is an opportunity that must be taken,” Soonyoung says solemnly. “This is an educational movie that shows you winning isn’t the most important thing.”

“Uh huh,” Wonwoo nods disbelievingly.

“Okay, I have another question. How do they have baby cars? Like, do their car characteristics pass on the way human genes do or—?”

“That’s it!” Wonwoo bounces up and crawls over the bed to tug the remote control from underneath Soonyoung’s belly. “We’re watching something else. You’re losing your mind, and I’m feeling my brain leak out of my ears.”

“Hey! Give that back, the movie’s not over yet,” Soonyoung protests, tackling Wonwoo and pinning him down on the bed to restrict his movement. He makes a grab for the remote but Wonwoo holds it out with one arm just out of his grasp.

Wonwoo tries to roll over and get away, but he’s pinned under Soonyoung’s thighs, and he makes a brief choking sound before laughing. “You already know how it ends anyway! Why can’t we watch something else we can understand?”

“This movie transcends language barriers.” Soonyoung lunges forward to make a grab for it but loses his balance and in his moment of weakness, Wonwoo flips them over until Soonyoung’s underneath him and he’s sitting upright so he can change the channel to the news. It’s in Chinese and he can’t understand it, but at least it’s not Lightning McQueen. He lauds his victory by stretching his arms over his head and pumping his fists in victory, the remote still firmly in his grasp.

Seeing his chance, Soonyoung’s fingers dart out to Wonwoo’s stomach, where a sliver of skin is showing from his shirt rising up, and he tickles Wonwoo into dropping the remote right onto Soonyoung’s sternum. “That’s cheating,” Wonwoo complains.

“Ow.”

“Shit, are you okay?”

Soonyoung grabs the remote and sits up, making Wonwoo fall backward. He grins. “Just kidding, I’m fine.” He turns around to switch the channel back to _Cars_ before getting tackled again by Wonwoo, who lies flat on top of him to keep him down.

“Cheat. You are a cheater.”

“Maybe, but at least I’m not a loser, like you are,” Soonyoung says, kicking his legs out in his attempts to free himself. The back of his thigh rubs up against Wonwoo’s crotch and he sucks in a breath.

“Stop moving,” he demands, holding Soonyoung’s back down with both of his hands.

“Make me,” Soonyoung says in a whiney voice. He starts wiggling his ass and bucking backward with his hips. “I’ll never surrender to you.”

“Soon-ah, seriously,” Wonwoo says. He bites his lip and squirms, trying to rise up onto his knees to avoid the friction. “Stop it.”

Soonyoung turns over onto his back, and in the process his leg rubs up against Wonwoo again. “What?” He blinks. Now it’s impossible not to notice that Wonwoo’s hard dick is pressing into Soonyoung’s soft thigh, the warmth radiating between them, even separated by layers of fabric.

“Wonwoo—”

Feeling his face burning, his legs burning, and something hot and unbearable deep in his gut, Wonwoo scrambles off of Soonyoung, off the bed, and out of the room.

 

  

*

 

 

“You going back for the weekend?” Wonwoo asked, sprawled out on the couch with his phone in one hand.

Mingyu nodded and pulled the strap of his backpack over his shoulder, tested the handle of his suitcase before rolling it over toward their enormous shoe rack. “Yeah. You’re staying then?”

“Parents are busy back home anyway so…it’ll be nice for you to go see your grandmother again, I guess. Is Minghao going with you?” Wonwoo tilted his head and slurped up the jelly he was holding in his other hand before throwing the empty container at the trash bin and missing.

“Hyung,” Mingyu complained, walking back over to properly dispose of Wonwoo’s garbage for him. “And no, it didn’t work out. We both wanted him to come visit but he’ll have other opportunities to explore Korea, I’m sure. It’s just…I’m pretty sure I’m spending the entire time with my grandma and I don’t know, I think it’d be weird for him and weird for my family if he were just sticking around the whole time. Plus, something else came up for him.”

“Are you kidding? Your grandmother would love him. He’s skinnier than I am. Your family would just spend the entire time feeding him all kinds of food and telling him to try everything they can get their hands on. He’d be pampered.”

Mingyu shrugged. “Well, like I said, something else came up so we just said next time.”

“You think you’ll go back and be a celebrity? I mean, in your neighbourhood. Surely your schoolmates and whatever will know you’re famous.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t plan on meeting up with them then, isn’t it?” Mingyu said, tone fiery. “It’s weird being recognized but it’s weirder when…Remember just before we were debuting? When everyone at the company was like, oh, do you think it’s enough to just debut? Is that your end goal? And all of us were like no, of course not…but it _was_ our end goal wasn’t it? At least most of us had been stuck training with Pledis for years with debut rumours, that kept getting pushed back and pushed back. So just the prospects of finally doing the deed was special to us.”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo said. “Yeah, I know what you mean. It was just a goal to stand on our own stage as debuted idols. We weren’t thinking of something else.”

“But now what? Now we’re debuted, there are people out there who like us, not to be overly modest. I’m just saying the truth. So what is our goal? I mean, if you think about it, there are probably hundreds of idols living in Seoul. Seeing one on the streets here probably isn’t even that special to people.”

“We have to dream bigger.” Wonwoo flipped onto his back. “What’s that quote in that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio? We can’t be scared to dream a little bigger, something like that.”

“I remember! _Inception_. We should watch that again when I come back.” Mingyu hoisted his bag over his other shoulder, since it had been sliding down the one it was previously on.

“Nah, I don’t want to watch anything with you,” Wonwoo said with a smile. “I’ll make whoever else is around watch it with me instead.”

“Who’s staying?”

“I don’t know, the usual I guess. Minghao, now that you’ve said he’s not going with you. Hansol, Junhui, Jisoo-hyung. Too far to go home. Oh, and Soonyoung’s not going home.”

“You can watch the movie with Soonyoung-hyung,” Mingyu said with a nod.

“Sure.”

“You’ll have fun. Soonyoung-hyung likes you.”

“Of course he does. Everyone likes me.”

“And you like him,” Mingyu continued, still nodding to himself.

Wonwoo rolled his eyes. “It’d be a bit strange if we were best friends but didn’t like each other, don’t you think?”

Mingyu shook his head to stop his own muttering, and then blinked quickly. “Huh? Oh, yeah. But I meant…Never mind. Anyway, enjoy yourselves. I’m off.”

“Don’t die!” Wonwoo called out.

 

 

*

 

 

Wonwoo becomes incredibly well-acquainted with the hotel’s wallpaper and carpet. He can’t leave the building, but he can’t very well stay inside their room, so he ends up walking up and down the hallways until he’s memorized the layout by heart and bumped into the same people more than once, who give him odd looks. He pretends he’s lost on his way to fill up their ice bucket.

The walking is methodical, but his mind is in absolute disarray. His heart, too, beats irregularly, although he’s calmed down long enough that he’s flaccid again, and not trying to dry hump Soonyoung’s leg for release. He shouldn’t have thought that. Now he’s going to have to pace another dozen times to get that out of his system.

When he finally returns, unable to put off sleep for much longer, Soonyoung is sitting on the edge of the bed with his knees drawn up to his chest, watching an English broadcast of the news.

“Soonyoungie,” Wonwoo says.

“Hey! You’re back,” Soonyoung says brightly.

“Let’s talk?”

“I’m watching the news, wanna join me?”

They’re doing that thing again. Where they’re having two conversations with each other. “Soonyoung, let’s talk, please.”

Soonyoung deflates a bit, shrinking even smaller than he had been curled up on himself, alone on the huge swanky bed with its fancy antiquated style that matched the old-timey faux-sophisticated décor. “It’s okay, Wonwoo-goon,” he says casually. “We’re healthy young men, you know,” and here he tries to stick his chin up and do his little shtick for being ‘manly men’, “it’s all normal, all good.”

“Yeah, okay, fine, but that’s not what I want to talk about.”

“You found someone to swap rooms with?”

“What? No! Why would you think that? That thought hasn’t even crossed my mind.”

Soonyoung straightens a little. “Oh. When you left I thought that’s what you were going to do, find another member so…if that’s not it, then what did you want to talk about?”

Wonwoo twists his hands in front of his chest, palms sliding over each other, damp with sweat. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“I know you,” Soonyoung says. “I know you, Wonwoo-goon, and you know me. I know you know, and you know you know, so this is just…it just is. It’s how we’ve always been. We’re like this.” He looks up at Wonwoo with the look of desperation in his eyes. If they don’t talk about it, things don’t change. How they work right now is _working_ , but it’s also not. He’s pleading that they don’t shift from the status quo.

But the status quo eats at Wonwoo with as much ferocity as his fear of the unknown and he’s not an asshole. He can be a bit mean sometimes, but he’s not an asshole. He’s not. “How long have we been like this, Soon-ah? It’s not fair.”

Soonyoung swallows loudly enough that Wonwoo can hear it. “What’s your point?”

“I…” Wonwoo sits and the word ‘scared’ slips away from him. “It’s been a long time. You were always a bit looser with your feelings, so the onus was always on me to…rally back or not, so to speak. With Youngri…”

“I liked her,” Soonyoung interrupted quietly. “I meant what I said. You two suited each other.”

“I liked her too, but it’s too late to talk about that now. But I mean, with her, I could see where the future led. After years of hiding, after it becomes acceptable to the public maybe a whole decade from when we started dating, we’d finally get married, have kids, start a family. I didn’t have to go see a fortune teller or do some astro-compatibility shit to see that.”

“Okay,” Soonyoung says flatly.

“Don’t take this badly,” Wonwoo pleads. “But what’s the future here?” He asks, gesturing between them. He can’t say it any more explicitly like that, he’s too scared, and scared of saying the word scared. “You know me so well. You know me _too_ well. You know everywhere I hurt and everywhere I don’t. But what can I do? Instead of it making you hate me you feel…”

Soonyoung dips his head, chin toward chest, casting his gaze downward. “Yeah. But I never asked…I never said because I know. I know the questions, the uncertainty, don’t want to put you in a position where you have to find answers. I’ve never even…”

“But I do,” Wonwoo says desperately, tearing Soonyoung’s arm away from his shins so he can place his palm flat against Wonwoo’s chest where his heart is ramming against his ribs. “Forget how embarrassingly hot I found wrestling you to a bed. If you asked the question, the answer would be yes. Me too. Do you see? So that’s why I don’t know what to do. That’s why…” _I have to stop lying to myself_.

“Wonwoo…”

Wonwoo wants to press his face against Soonyoung’s chest and make someone else figure his life out for him. Someone else to make the decisions, take the reins, and along with them, the responsibilities and consequences of his choices. Heaven knows Wonwoo’s lived long enough with the consequences of his inaction, and that Soonyoung had suffered the most while he was at it.

Instead, he lets Soonyoung’s hand drop and takes a deep breath.

“Do you trust me?” Soonyoung shakes his head. “Bad question. I know you trust me. Isn’t that why you let me in? Give me bits of yourself to hold? If you trust me, though, you know I wouldn’t let go of your hand if we walk this road together. I can’t see the end either, but if we go together, if we go together however long we can…there’s only an endless horizon, and a sky full of stars beyond that.”

“That’s the romantic’s dream. That’s what we are now, we’re a dreamer and a cynic. I just see dark shadows and no way forward.”

“You don’t think I can shine a light onto the path for you? That’s why I’m here, to show the cynic that way forward.”

Wonwoo doesn’t know what to say. He knows what he _wants_ to say, but he hasn’t lived his life following what he wants or his base desires.

“Come here,” Soonyoung murmurs. “Let’s just sleep on it for now. I’m still a bit shocked.”

Wonwoo hobbles over to the bed and sits beside Soonyoung before tilting sideways to rest his head in Soonyoung’s lap. He falls asleep to the gentle brush of Soonyoung’s fingers on his face, caressing his cheek with care.

 

 

*

 

 

A few weeks later, when they’re firmly in the calmer waters of album preparations between promotion periods or tours, the two of them are still dancing around each other. They’re a bit touchier (a lot touchier) but the dorms aren’t a good place for private moments, and Wonwoo is still greatly terrified.

“Nothing has to happen,” Soonyoung says, having pulled Wonwoo away from a dance practice – or, well he said that they were going to go over some choreo but then dragged Wonwoo back to the empty dorms.

“Are you serious?” Wonwoo asks. “If something doesn’t happen soon I’m going to explode.”

“Jeez,” Soonyoung breathes, his cheeks colouring. He fans himself lightly.

Wonwoo smacks him in the arm. “I didn’t mean it like that, but I kind of do mean it like that too. You really like pretending to get it on with floors.”

“I know my appeals,” Soonyoung says smartly. “I’m sexy.”

“You are,” Wonwoo agrees, crowding into Soonyoung’s space.

Soonyoung nearly falls backward in his half-hearted attempt to get away, but at the last moment he reaches out for Wonwoo’s elbow and ends up with his arms tugging Wonwoo forward by the waist. “Don’t tease,” he says, close enough that Wonwoo can feel his breath with each syllable.

“Then don’t be so hot,” Wonwoo says defensively and then leans in for a proper kiss.

Soonyoung is a very good kisser. Wonwoo isn’t sure why he hadn’t anticipated this outcome considering Soonyoung hasn’t exactly lived a life of celibacy, and likes to watch ‘videos’ for ‘educational purposes’. Also, Soonyoung is kind of good at doing anything related to the body – it’s some dancer’s bodily-kinesthetic awareness thing, and it’s like he _knows_ Wonwoo’s going to moan from having his lip sucked on like that.

“God. I’ve always wanted to do that to you.”

“What?”

“Despite having a very small mouth, you have a very full lower lip, did you know?” Soonyoung asked. He leans in again for another kiss, tongue sliding against Wonwoo’s in a way that is tantalizingly too much and not enough. “If it wasn’t clear already,” he says, after pulling away again, “I really like you, Jeon Wonwoo.”

“Fuck,” Wonwoo says. “You’d better.” He presses against Soonyoung so their bodies are flush against each other, mouths touching, chests touching, and his crotch right up against Soonyoung. It would be impossible to miss the bulge that’s growing for both of them. “I want.”

“Me too, but that’s…”

“Shut up,” Wonwoo says, grinding his growing erection against Soonyoung. “If you want it, you’re getting it.” He sinks to his knees.

“Ohmygod,” Soonyoung squeaks. “Wonwoo?”

“Mhm,” is all Wonwoo can articulate, nuzzling against the hardness tenting Soonyoung’s pants. He unzips him slowly, and feels through his boxers just how big Soonyoung’s dick is. It’s heavy and thick in his hands and he wants it in his mouth yesterday.

Wonwoo has very little reference for this, only knowing what feels good without the concrete technical abilities to achieve said results. Based on the way Soonyoung is melting under him, limbs becoming soft and pliant and voice coming out in little wordless noises, that might not matter. Soonyoung’s so flushed and breathless Wonwoo thinks he might come undone if he just breathed in the right direction.

“I’m going to suck your cock,” Wonwoo says.

“I noticed,” Soonyoung manages breathily.

Wonwoo grins up at him. “I just wanted to say that out loud.”

He starts by just putting the tip in his mouth, getting used to the taste, which is mostly fleshy and not much else. Once his tongue gets used to the feeling of something resting on top of it without feeling the need to flick out in every direction, Wonwoo takes more of Soonyoung into his mouth. Takes in as much of him as he can. But Soonyoung is genuinely fucking big, and he can’t get much further down, so he wraps his hand around the base so his lips are pressed to his own index finger and slides back up before moving both mouth and hand back down again.

“Fuck. Fuck, Wonwoo, fuck.”

“Right,” Wonwoo says, pausing for a moment “That’s the idea.” His other hand is massaging himself through his pants, unable to resist when he’s this turned on and leaking a damp spot straight through his underwear.

It’s a bit messy, trying to keep his lips tight and cheeks hollowed while moving his hand in what he hopes is a matching rhythm, but Soonyoung was practically gone the second Wonwoo started licking, his fingers tight in Wonwoo’s hair, his hips swaying, trying to get Wonwoo around him again each time his mouth slides away from his cock. It’s not right to call it sucking off when it’s more like Soonyoung fucking his mouth. There’s something incredibly hot about that.

“I’m so close,” Soonyoung says. “Fuck, you have no idea how good this feels.”

Wonwoo lifts up, leaving on his hand loosely around Soonyoung’s dick. “Next time you can show me.”

Soonyoung gasps at the loss of sensation, panting hard. His legs are shaking. “You’re such a fucking asshole, Jeon…”

Then Wonwoo’s mouth is on Soonyoung again, just holding him there, hot and wet and unmoving. “Wonwoo, please…”

Those words…it’s not quite clear who comes first. Wonwoo into his pants like a depraved teenager, or Soonyoung, sweaty, head tilted back, mouth wide open while he spills into Wonwoo’s mouth.

 

 

*

 

 

“Good morning,” Wonwoo murmurs, feeling Soonyoung stir beside him.

“Is it? Feels like it was just a good dream,” Soonyoung whispers back. He burrows under the covers and Wonwoo feels his hair tickling his arm.

“Not a dream. But if it were, it was the best dream of your fucking life.”

Soonyoung giggles in lieu of a reply and it draws a smile out of Wonwoo too. Ever so gently, Soonyoung taps his index finger against Wonwoo’s nose, slides it down to his mouth, and then replaces said finger with his own mouth. It’s just a quick peck, but Wonwoo feels a whole onslaught of butterflies in his stomach, like the beat of a single wing brushing against his lips was enough to gather an entire kaleidoscope of the pretty creatures.

“Thank you for waiting for me.”

“I told you, I’ll follow you anywhere. That’s always been my dream. Us, on stage together, forever.” Soonyoung sighs happily. “It’s a nice life when your dream is your reality.”

 

 

*

 

 

“We’re here~!” The first thing Soonyoung does after getting off the plane and stepping onto the air bridge is plant his feet right in the middle of the tunnel, raise his arms up, and stretch.

“Move it, you’re blocking the way for the people behind us,” Wonwoo mutters, shoving Soonyoung in the back with his shoulder.

Soonyoung stumbles forward and starts walking. He turns to pout at Wonwoo’s faux grimace and then the two of them share a soft smile.

“Isn’t Bangkok nice? Aren’t you glad to be here again?”

“Um…”

“Do you even remember the last time we were here?” Soonyoung asks. It’s the end of March in the year 2017, and Jeon Wonwoo is wearing jeans, a grey jacket, a black mask, and a smile on his face.

“Was that the time we made a heart with our arms?”

“No, the last time we were in Thailand you and Mingyu shoved your foreheads together for a staring contest. But I’ll give you bonus points for trying.” Soonyoung laughs, his square teeth showing from his parted lips.

Wonwoo slings an arm around his shoulder, casual, easy. “Sounds awful. I’m glad I don’t remember it.”

“Mm…guess we’ll make better memories this time, huh?”

If the world were always cast in the light of the sun, would you ever miss it?

You need the night for the stars to shine. Wonwoo, he’s done his time, spent months in a prison of darkness alone, in pain, a bit of both. Now it’s time for his personal Polaris to guide him. He turns his head to the side and stares into the shining brightness that is Kwon Soonyoung.

 

 

  

**Author's Note:**

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> ~~I would like to ask that if you have read this fic, whether you enjoyed it or utterly hated it, to please take an additional few moments and complete the[Olymfics survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSehlvY3xp7ybkhqgpZIzbnI_8JdyimJYhdQu7WYjBt255WZJw/viewform?usp=sf_link).~~ Many thanks to everyone who voted. Yay Team Canon!!


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